Provider STM Group has secured a £5.5m war chest to fund acquisitions in the coming years.
In an update to the market this morning (November 6) the company, which bought Sipp provider Carey Pensions in 2018, confirmed it had secured the multi-million pound loan with the Royal Bank of Scotland (International).
The loan is set to fund STM's plans for mergers and acquisitions in the next 18 months.
STM has been active in the acquisitions market already this year, buying both Berkeley Burke’s small self-administered scheme and international pension businesses in a deal worth up to £2.9m in August.
STM said at the time the Berkeley Burke acquisition was expected to break even in the first year, after which it was set to make annual profits of £600,000.
All of the acquired businesses were integrated into STM’s subsidiary Options UK, formerly known as Carey Pensions.
In its annual results last year STM pointed to a three-month delay on the Carey Pensions rebrand as cause for fewer clients opting for the group's new Sipp product than expected.
More recently the company warned it expected new business volumes to be significantly lower for the rest of 2020, in part due to the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a trading update last month STM revealed that although the last quarter of the year typically provided “solid new business growth”, it expected to see significantly lower levels and would have to “take a more conservative stance” on its new business numbers for the remainder of 2020.
rachel.mortimer@ft.com
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