Selling a financial advice business you’ve built up over the years is never just a transaction, it’s a deeply personal decision. And one which has very real consequences for the people behind it, both owners and staff, as well as for clients. In this personal reflection, Laura Young, Regional Financial Planning Support Manager – Scotland, Clifton Wealth Partnership, shares her experience of selling Cairn Independent to Clifton Wealth Partnership, and the lessons she learned about trust, timing and what really matters when choosing a buyer.
When you decide to sell your advice firm, everyone has an opinion. It’s a well-intentioned chorus of caution from lawyers and accountants, who warn that you must take valuations with a pinch of salt, and that any acquirer is going to tell you exactly what you want to hear to get a deal over the line. The challenge is trying to weigh up those sceptical voices with the consolidator sitting across the table from you.
And through all of it, you won’t know if you’ve made the right choice until the ink is dry.
I went through this process as Operations Director at Cairn Independent, which was acquired by Clifton Wealth Partnership in February of this year. I’m now part of the Clifton team, which I appreciate makes me a less-than-neutral voice when it comes to consolidation in the sector. Nevertheless, selling a firm is a process I’ve been through recently; I understand that most business owners only get to do this once, and that’s what makes the stakes so high. There’s a lot to think about and weigh up, and, if you’re considering selling your firm, you don’t necessarily have a community of people around you who have recently been through it. It’s rare to find an honest account of what an acquisition really feels like from the inside.
So, here’s mine.
It’s not just about the clients
Every piece you’ll read about consolidation and acquisition says the same thing: it’s all about finding the right fit for clients. Obviously, this is an important part of the puzzle. But to frame it only in those terms is to cut out half the picture.
When you’ve built a business, you’ve also built a team. People who have given years, perhaps decades, of their careers to that firm. As we were going through the process at Cairn, I was acutely aware that whatever decision we made, we were making it on behalf of those people too. They deserved security and to know that we hadn’t made this choice lightly, or without them in mind.
A successful acquisition thinks beyond the clients and to the people who plan to continue at the firm in its new form. With that said, there’s still a point to be made about clients here – if staff don’t feel looked after, and consequently leave following an acquisition, it’s more disruption and uncertainty for the clients you’ve worked so hard to gain the trust of.
Green flags – and red ones
If I’m honest, Clifton wasn’t a name I recognised when they first approached us. Some of the firms that came knocking were well-known consolidators. We spoke to them, got a feel, and nothing came of it. It just didn’t feel right. What struck me about Clifton was they seemed genuinely grounded. Perhaps the romantic cliche is also true when it comes to selling your business: when you know, you know.
We spent the better part of a year in dialogue with them before we reached completion. That sounds like a long process, but you need the time to learn about how an organisation really operates by watching how they handle small, administrative things like how quickly they come back to you.
The real test, though, comes after completion. In my experience, Clifton has been as good as its word. The integration has been genuinely flexible, and clients haven’t been swept wholesale onto Clifton’s centralised investment proposition regardless of suitability. Processes have been allowed to transition gradually, rather than changed overnight. These things matter enormously to clients and to the team navigating the change.
I’ve heard enough through the industry grapevine to know this experience isn’t universal. I’ve heard of firms that were promised continuity and found the goalposts had quickly moved as soon as they’d signed on the dotted line. I’ve heard of cases where propositions were imposed where they were promised to be optional. Clients moved into consolidator-owned assets that the original owners wouldn’t have advised for them. That gap between what’s said and what happens is, I suspect, where most acquisition stories go wrong. An acquisition is a big change, and, in my opinion, a gentle, phased approach is best for everybody involved.
What I’d tell anyone considering this
If you’re serious about the prospect of selling your firm, at some point, you’re going to have to take a leap of faith. Even having done everything right – the conversations, the due diligence, the legal process – you still won’t know for certain that you’ve made the right choice until you’re on the other side.
What you can do is pay attention to the things that happen before the ink is dry. How do they respond when things get difficult? Do they feel like people you could work with? Is the version of the firm they’re describing one that you, honestly, would want to be part of?
That last question turned out to be the most clarifying one for me. At the start of the process, I’d told my co-directors that unless something genuinely excited me, I wasn’t interested. If it wasn’t a hell yes, it was a no. I realised I wanted to be a part of Clifton when I knew I was genuinely excited about what they were building and what my team would have access to – the technology, the infrastructure and the wider team. When I realised that, I knew it was the right move for everyone at Cairn.
We’re only a few months in and there might be challenges ahead. But the experience so far has been exactly how I imagined it would be, and that has given me a huge sense of relief. And, most importantly, a belief that we did the right thing by our staff and clients.
