Fairstone, one of the UK’s largest Chartered Financial Planning firms, has secured Utopia Financial Planning and Sovereign Wealth Management into its downstream buyout programme, and both will be fully integrated into Fairstone prior to final acquisition.
Collectively, Utopia Financial Planning and Sovereign Wealth Management will bring 16 members of staff to Fairstone, as well as a total ongoing fee revenue of GBP2 million and GBP220 million AUM. Between them, the businesses service 3,500 clients.
Founded in 2004, West Yorkshire-based Utopia Financial Planning specialises in pre- and post-retirement planning for both individuals and small businesses.
Sovereign Wealth Management has offices in Bath and Bristol and offers whole of market financial advice to clients, specialising in pensions and investments.
One of the fastest growing advisory firms in the UK, Fairstone’s downstream buyout programme continues to see huge expansion and the addition of these businesses brings the number of firms which have joined Fairstone’s proprietary acquisition framework this year, to five.
Fairstone CEO, Lee Hartley (pictured), says: “We are very pleased to bring two further high-quality businesses into our acquisition programme. At Fairstone, we work hard to ensure our industry leading infrastructure gives firms the support they need to grow their businesses without compromising on client service or independence, this includes our dedication to providing invaluable support in navigating the complex and ever-evolving regulatory landscape.”
“Integration plays a key role in any firm joining Fairstone. By completing this process early and embracing our support tools, our partners have shown time and again that they can achieve significantly higher organic growth and realise more value on final sale than anticipated.”
Marcus Harris, company principal at Sovereign Wealth Management, says: “Following extensive due diligence, we voted unanimously for Fairstone having been particularly impressed with its streamlined business processes, state of the art IT and a solid reputation within the sector. By joining Fairstone we have embraced a golden opportunity to safeguard our ability to deliver first-class financial advice to our clients without being constrained by bureaucracy or distracted by the changing face of financial regulation. Consequently, we now feel better placed than ever to meet the challenges associated within the financial services environment whilst also looking forward to our future as part of a well-respected and forward thinking national Chartered IFA firm.”
Darron Whitehead, company principal at Utopia Financial Planning, says: “Since we founded the business in 2004, we have worked hard to build a very successful family run business. We wanted to join forces with a long-term partner who shares the same ethos as ours and Fairstone was a great fit.”
