Ascot Lloyd has announced today that it has received financing from funds managed by the Credit Group of Ares Management Corporation (“Ares”), a leading global alternative investment manager.
The IFA reveals that this financing will be used to support their ambitious growth strategy and the new funding will further increase the capital available for acquisitions to over £100 million.
Today’s announcement comes following a strong 2020 for Ascot Lloyd with the business completing 12 acquisitions, despite the impact of COVID-19. These acquisitions added over £6.5 million of EBITDA to Ascot Lloyd with group revenues now over £60 million.
Ascot Lloyd is approaching £10 billion funds under influence, serving more than 21,000 clients through 132 IFAs across 15 locations nationwide.
Nigel Stockton, CEO of Ascot Lloyd, commented: “After being introduced by Houlihan Lokey, who acted as our sole advisers in this transaction, to Ares in 2017 we are absolutely delighted to announce this transaction significantly extending our relationship with Ares, a leading global alternative investment manager. Their interest in Ascot Lloyd underlines the quality of our business, our strong recent track record and the significant market opportunity we believe there to be.
We now have in excess of £100m available to invest in acquisitions in the UK market, reinforcing our position as a leading home for high-quality IFAs. Recent investments into the sector have highlighted the scale of consolidation set to take place, and Ascot Lloyd is well placed within this. The additional funds we now have available will allow us to focus on more meaningful acquisitions while our proven ability to integrate businesses alongside offering a compelling platform for advisers will continue to make us an attractive home for IFAs looking to sell.
We are also investing in infrastructure and technology across both our back-office and front-office, becoming more efficient as a business while enhancing how we engage with clients. Our resilience during COVID-19 is testament to our financial performance, capital strength and ability to service and advise clients during unprecedented times and volatile markets.
We enter 2021 looking forward to the future.”
Daniel Sinclair, Partner of Ares Management added: “We believe Ascot Lloyd is a very well-positioned business operating in a market with positive long-term structural drivers. In our engagement, we have been impressed by Nigel and the management team. We believe they have a clear growth strategy and have consistently delivered against this in recent years. Ascot Lloyd is now one of the UK’s largest and fastest growing independently owned IFA firms and we look forward to working with Nigel, his team and Oaktree Capital as it continues this success.”
Federico Alvarez-Demalde, Managing Director with Oaktree Capital Management added: “For seven years now Oaktree have had a clear ambition to keep growing the Ascot Lloyd business and we are thrilled to have Ares provide this financing. Since 2015 Nigel and his team have been able to double the size of the business every year to 18 months and this transaction will enable us to keep on that growth journey.”
