Rowan Dartington has been hoovered up by St James’s Place in a deal worth £34m.
The stockbroker and discretionary investment manager Rowan Dartington, which is based in Bristol, gets an initial £19m, with up to £15.2m to follow.
The announcement came within St James’s Place interim statement which saw the FTSE100 company announce what the management said was a strong six months. CEO David Bellamy told shareholders: “I am pleased to once again be reporting a strong first half performance and continued momentum in all aspects of our business. Against a backdrop of a volatile market, new investments grew to £4.4 billion…Disappointingly, our profits have been impacted by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme levy, which has almost trebled from £6.9 million to £20 million.”
On the acquisition of Rowan Dartington St James’s Place said in their shareholder statement: “St James’s Place has been looking at providing a Discretionary Fund Management (DFM) service for some time and the acquisition of Rowan Dartington Holdings Ltd provides an excellent platform from which to build this additional service for our clients.
“The addition of a discretionary and advisory portfolio service, including advisory services, direct equity, trust and charity portfolio management is complementary to our own distinctive investment approach and broadens the range of investment options we can offer clients.”
Rowan Dartington has 100 staff based in Bristol and ten regional offices, and has assets of over £1bn. Executive Chairman Graham Coxell said: “We are incredibly excited about the future. We feel this opportunity represents the best possible ‘next chapter’ in RD’s growth and development, and is complementary to the already extremely successful and broad proposition of the SJP group.
“This opportunity will not only provide a strong platform for St. James’s Place to provide discretionary fund management services to high net worth clients, it will also enable Rowan Dartington to continue to develop and support the propositions and services to our existing and new private clients, as well as the broader UK financial adviser market.”
The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
