Acquisitions

Finding the right partner for your clients

If you’re exploring your options as a business owner and looking to put your succession plan into action, it’s vital that you find a buyer who shares your vision of client service.

At Wren Sterling, we’ve helped many business owners transition from the day-to-day running of their firm into a role with us where we take on the administration and the regulatory burden, leaving you clear to do what you do best; helping your clients achieve their goals.

Our starting point is that wherever possible, we don’t want to change what you do. We want to learn from people who have successfully run their own business for many years.

At the same time, we find that our scale and commercial arrangements can result in value for your clients, plus our investments in technology, our compliance function and our brand are there to enhance your proposition.

How Wren Sterling helps

We have over 300 people working in the Wren Sterling Group. That means we require developed central services. You can benefit from:

• Over 100 financial planners so you can collaborate, share ideas and best practice
• A national Operations team that uses industry-leading technology to process work accurately and efficiently
• A Human Resources team to support and help determine the right career path for your staff
• A Commercial team focused on enhancing Wren Sterling’s client proposition, building our brand and generating new business leads
• A Compliance function with huge levels of experience in complex areas of financial advice to keep you and your clients safe
• An IT department and support service providing on-site support to keep your phone connected and your IT equipment transition seamless
• A Finance function to take away the burden of balancing your books

Integration support

Our investors, Lightyear Capital and Wren Sterling’s Management Team, are committed to bringing through the best financial planning firms as we look to grow our business, so we’ve invested in a dedicated integration team led by an experienced project manager to ensure your business becomes part of Wren Sterling with minimum disruption to your client service.

We’re skilled at data migration, post-completion communications and all the wrap-around support you need to maintain your service levels at this busy time.

Back book acquisition service

A trend we’re seeing in the IFA market right now is the consolidation of client banks for large businesses, as they move their minimum fee level upwards.

We’ve had to do the same ourselves, as there is a limit to what a firm can provide and ensure that every client is receiving regular high-quality contact from their financial planner, but we remain in the market for books of clients at lower levels.

Wren Sterling is very experienced in large-scale onboarding and integration projects with resource to manage client contact and embed new clients seamlessly into our client propositions.

With a national network of experienced Financial Planners as well as our desk-based team, Connect, we can provide the ongoing financial advice that clients need in the way that suits them.

Our minimum viable investible asset level is £25,000 per individual client with no upper limit. We also operate family group structures, so we can ensure a service is provided to an immediate family if data can be grouped accordingly, ensuring continuity of advice.

In the last 5 years, Wren Sterling has completed over 20 acquisitions, as well as the purchase of a large back book from a Northern Irish bank, which has been successfully integrated into our core business.

Find out more

Jason McGuigan, formerly the managing director of Critchleys Financial Planning LLP talks about why he chose to sell his business to Wren Sterling and his experience of working here since.