Titan Wealth has bought a Poole-based discretionary fund manager as part of its aim to increase its assets under management to between £50bn and £70bn in three years.
Discretionary fund manager Baggette launched in 2017 and has AUM of £180mn, including the Mazarin Fund range.
As part of the deal, Baggette and Titan will form a strategic partnership with Baggette Wealth operating as a retail distribution partner.
The acquisition brings Titan Wealth’s total AUM to £5.2bn.
Joint-chief executive officers of Titan Wealth, James Kaberry and Andrew Fearon, said the acquisition allows Titan to extend the range of funds it offers.
“Since Titan Wealth launched in June 2021 with the acquisition of two leading investment and wealth management businesses - GPP and Tavistock Wealth Limited – we have been on a journey to reform the sector,” they said.
“Following the acquisition of Cardale Asset Management earlier this year, the acquisition of Baggette marks another key moment in our journey to providing better integration and flexibility to investment managers, IFAs and end investors.”
In February this year, Fearon told FTAdviser Titan is in active conversations with five firms around acquisitions.
He said Titan sees opportunity in the DFM consolidation space, as opposed to the IFA consolidation sector which he said is a “crowded market”.
“There’s 700-800 DFMs in the UK and a lot of them are either subscale or they’re under margin pressure,” he told FTAdviser at the time.
There is a “wall” of capital ready to deploy into investment services, he added, outside of IFAs, who are leaving traditional big banks.
“Because you’ve also got margin pressures, you’ve got businesses that are struggling to grow, and so there’s a strong case to start consolidating those businesses.”
Titan Wealth launched in June 2021 with the acquisition of investment and wealth management businesses GPP and Tavistock Wealth.
A month later the company then bought Tavistock’s DFM, renaming it Titan Asset Management after its £40mn sale completed.
sally.hickey@ft.com
