Interactive Investor’s purchase of the Alliance Trust Savings platform should concern advisers, it has been claimed.
Abraham Okusanya, who runs consultancy firm FinalyiQ, said the £40m deal meant clients had been shuffled "like deckchairs on the Titanic" to a platform with "zero experience" of dealing with advisers.
Interactive Investor is one of the largest platforms by assets in the UK market, but all of the business is currently direct-to-consumer.
The company has declined to comment on its specific plans for Alliance Trust Savings as there were regulatory approvals to be obtained before the deal can formally be completed.
But FTAdviser understands the intention is for Alliance Trust to move onto the Interactive Investor platform, similar to the way clients of the TD Direct platform it purchased in 2016 were integrated after this deal.
Interactive Investor paid £40m for Alliance Trust Savings and the company’s building in Dundee, a discount of more than 5 per cent on the price at which those assets were held in the accounts of Alliance Trust.
david.thorpe@ft.com
