Bowmore Wealth Group has bought North Oxfordshire-based Independent Financial Strategies for an undisclosed amount, adding £50mn assets under advice to Bowmore Financial Planning, and bringing the total for Bowmore Group to above £400mn.
Bowmore Wealth Group is the parent company of Bowmore Financial Planning, a chartered financial planner for private clients, trustees and corporates, and Bowmore Asset Management, a discretionary fund manager.
Headed by Charles Cozens and Kate Wythe who will continue to work with the business, Independent Financial Strategies focuses on HNW clients.
Mark Incledon, chief executive of Bowmore Wealth Group, said: “Although we are planning to expand through mergers and acquisitions, we’re being careful only to progress with businesses that have a very close cultural fit with our own.
Bowmore prides itself on being a family business where the emphasis is on servicing clients – that matches very closely with Independent Financial Strategies’s approach on delivering a top-quality service for clients.”
He added “We are much more interested in merging with businesses where there is some value that we can add for the client base.
For Independent Financial Strategies, which has historically been more focused on the investment side of its work, we feel we can offer its clients a lot through our financial planning side.”
Cozens said Independent Financial Strategies had chosen to sell to Bowmorefor their well-formulated succession plan and a similar ethos.
“They have an inclusive ‘can do’ approach that can accommodate a broad spectrum of clients, “ he said.
“It is also worthy of note that our advisers on the deal said that he had never before seen both a buyer and seller take so much care and trouble to get to know each other’s business before completing the deal.”