Perspective Financial Group has confirmed its first acquisition of the year, adding £37mn in assets under management with Buckinghamshire-based Ian J Hunt Chartered Financial Planners.
The new addition will join Perspective’s Woodstock office in Oxfordshire, transferring 70 households as clients.
The consolidator also said it has exchanged on a further eight acquisitions, all of which are now awaiting Financial Conduct Authority approval.
I have had many approaches over the years…On too many occasions, I was somewhat underwhelmed.Ian Hunt, Ian J Hunt Chartered Financial PlannersLast year, Perspective made 12 acquisitions, with one confirmed each month.
The last was Staffordshire-based IFA Hunter & Co which added £115mn in assets.
The firm’s first purchase of 2023, Ian J Hunt Chartered Financial Planners, has been run by its founder and director for some 35 years but Ian Hunt says now is the right time to retire.
“I have had many approaches over the years and whilst the timing was never perhaps entirely right, I have spoken to several firms in order to get a feel of whether there is a ‘meeting of minds’,” said Hunt.
“On too many occasions, I was somewhat underwhelmed.”
Hunt said Perspective shares his attitude and ethics, while having the strength of a national firm.
“I am impressed by how well they retain the ‘local office’ approach,” he added.
Perspective’s chief executive, Ian Wilkinson, said the firm’s growth strategy this year will lead to both the opening of new offices and growing existing ones.
He also reiterated what he has said in the past, that the firm has its “biggest ever pipeline” of acquisitions, both large and small.
Perspective started back in 2007 and has made nearly 60 acquisitions.
The other 11 deals last year included East Sussex-based Informed Financial Advice, which added £100mn in assets, Essex-based Goldwyns Wealth Management, which added £70mn, three firms in the North spanning offices in Newcastle upon Tyne, Darlington and Dinnington, and Cambridgeshire-based adviser Ramsey Financial which added £50mn in assets.
In March, Perspective bought four firms in one go, ranging in size from £10mn to £175mn in assets.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
