Succession Wealth, one of the UK’s largest wealth management and financial planning groups, has announced the acquisition, subject to FCA change of control approval, of Spence & Spence, an Edinburgh-based independent financial advice business which manages £170m in assets.
Founded in 1994, Spence & Spence provides holistic, independent financial advice to help clients achieve their life goals. Its expertise spans pensions and retirement planning, investments, mortgage, protection and more and represents an important further expansion for Succession in and around Edinburgh.
This is Succession Wealth’s second acquisition under Aviva ownership and follows the purchases of Pannells Financial Planning, G+E Wealth Management, JCF Financial Services, Bankhouse Financial Management and Oxford Advisory Partnership in 2022, which collectively brought in more than £2.2bn in assets. It marks Succession Wealth’s 62nd acquisition since 2014.
James Stevenson, Chief Executive Officer at Succession, said: “We are excited to welcome Spence & Spence to Succession and look forward to working with Charlie and his team. We see a lot of companies, but it became obvious to us very quickly that this was a high-quality business, filled with a talented financial planning team who share our values. Their longstanding high quality reputation in the marketplace and focus and commitment on building long-term client relationships is something that especially resonated with us.”
“Overall, we remain focused on organic growth and strategic acquisitions where we believe they will benefit both parties. This enables us to continue to be selective in our acquisitions. We continue to receive notable approaches direct from financial planning firms and from the wider marketplace across the country and we are currently in exclusivity and advanced acquisition discussions with several high-quality independent planning firms.”
Charlie Spence, Director at Spence & Spence, said: “After almost three decades growing the business, this is a big step, but one we are very excited to take with Succession.
“From our first meeting, the synergies between our two businesses were clear and with the benefit of the backing and support from a large organisation like Aviva, we can focus more on our clients and our relationships with them.
“There has been a huge amount of support from Succession to ensure a smooth deal process and they have considerable experience when it comes to successfully integrating firms – something we are already seeing. Our priority has always been our staff and clients, and we have no doubt that they will all benefit from Succession’s breadth and depth of expertise and capabilities.”
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