Kingswood Holdings Limited, the international, fully integrated wealth and investment management group, announces an agreement to acquire, subject to regulatory approval, Money Matters (North East) Limited, a privately owned wealth management business, primarily offering its services in the North East of England.
David Lawrence, UK CEO at Kingswood, commented: “Since becoming UK CEO late last year, I have focused on building momentum in the business and expanding our capabilities to integrate and grow. I am thrilled to announce our acquisition of MMNE and look forward to welcoming Alastair Raine, Chris Woodhams and the whole team to Kingswood.
“Both Chris and Alastair have extensive experience as financial advisers and started MMNE in 2010 with a vision to combine their extensive expertise together to create a client centred business which is a vision that we share at Kingswood.
“The Kingswood model is designed to provide a centralised, efficient support infrastructure to manage the routine, but time consuming tasks required across compliance, finance, human resources, risk and technology, allowing the MMNE team to deliver a superior level of service to their clients. I am really looking forward to working with Chris and Alastair as we further grow the business as part of the Kingswood Group.
“We remain committed to perpetuating our stated growth strategy within the UK and internationally. This is our second acquisition of 2021 and we continue to have a strong pipeline of high-quality UK opportunities under negotiation, six of which are in exclusive due diligence as we continue to grow our financial planning and investment management reach across the UK. We expect to be making more announcements over the coming weeks.’’
About MMNE
MMNE is an independent financial adviser firm based in Redcar, North Yorkshire and they advise on all aspects of personal financial planning with clients that range from private individuals to small/medium sized businesses. MMNE currently employs 13 people, including three financial advisers, managing c.£115m AUA on behalf of c.600 active clients. In the year to 31 March 2021, MMNE generated profit before tax of £425k and had net assets of £499k as at that date.
Following regulatory approval, the business will be acquired for total cash consideration of up to £3.4m, payable over a two year period. £1.7m will be paid at closing and the balance paid on a deferred basis, some of which is subject to the achievement of pre-agreed performance targets.
Alastair Raine / Chris Woodhams, company principals at MMNE commented:
“We spoke to many firms with the primary aim of finding a firm with a very similar culture of placing the clients at the heart of everything we do, whilst focusing on staff welfare and progression. Kingswood fits these criteria perfectly.
“We have been searching for the right business to embrace our culture, philosophy, and principles in continuing to provide the highest quality, client focused financial advice.
“We feel the prospect of being part of a larger organisation allows us to address the challenges of dealing with increasing regulatory change whilst enhancing the service to existing clients and creating the potential for future growth. These were the key factors in joining the Kingswood Group.
We are delighted to have found such a firm in Kingswood, who will further enhance our client proposition and present an exciting new opportunity for all our staff that have helped us to grow the business over the last 11 years.”
