Self-invested personal pension (Sipp) provider Talbot and Muir is looking to fill the "vacuum left behind" by its rivals as they start to bear the brunt of allowing bad investments onto their books.
The firm's founder and director, Brian Talbot, said he expected more consolidation and failures in the marketplace as investments in toxic assets came back to haunt some of its rivals.
He said the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) enquiry into Ethical Forestry and the high profile collapse of Elysian Fuels were two examples impacting some of the large players in the market.
Mr Talbot said: "The tectonic plates within the Sipp industry have been moving rapidly over the last few years as providers reacted to the increased burden of capital adequacy and spectre of increased FCA scrutiny, combined with failing, non-standard investments.
"We believe there will be further consolidation and casualties within the market, driven in no small part by the extent of some providers' exposure to toxic, non-standard assets."
He signalled the provider was ready to step in and make use of market movements to further its own growth.
He said: "We have watched from afar over the last 10 years, with some degree of envy, the rapid growth of some of our competitors.
"We are now seeing that, in some cases, this growth was driven by an open-door policy where all manner of investments were allowed, often introduced via a combination of non-regulated introducers and direct clients.
"Advisers value our cradle to grave, hands on administration, combined with technical and procedural support. This is where we intend to remain positioned and to take advantage of the vacuum left by most of our competitors."
Talbot & Muir saw its Sipp book increase 14 per cent in the past year to a total of 4,360, alongside a 40 per cent increase in the number of advisers supporting them.
Assets under management increased 30 per cent to £2.4bn in the year, while the volume of small self administered schemes (Ssas) was also up.
Turnover at the firm had increased 17 per cent in the past year.
Sipp firm failings have contributed markedly to the regulatory levy on the industry in recent years, as more and more complaints about failed investments in Sipps or bad advice to transfer into Sipps have hit the regulatory bodies.
In January the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) started to pay out on claims against Sipp firms for the first time when it said it would compensate investors in relation to claims against Brooklands Trustees, Stadia Trustees and Montpelier Pension Administration Services, which it declared in default.
The claims are in relation to high risk, unregulated, non-standard investments such as storage pods, oil fields, diamonds and overseas property and were related to the way in which the firms established, operated and administered the Sipps.
Mr Talbot expected the legal costs and reputational damage to have a "serious impact" on firms exposed to such investments.
Paul Stocks, financial services director at Dobson and Hodge, said for him the most important features in a Sipp were "cost effectiveness, ease and speed of administration, flexible contract options, good support for us and the client, and back office integration."
But he said until recently he had only ever used 'proper' Sipps when there was a property involved.
He said: "Modern personal pensions were almost as flexible as a Sipp for mainstream investments and given that we don’t use Ucis we didn’t need the additional flexibility."
carmen.reichman@ft.com
