M&A Market Update
July was a quieter month for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the UK investment sector, with only four transactions valued at more than £5m announced. This brings the year-to-date (YTD) total to 38 deals.
All four transactions involved businesses operating within the financial advice market. The most notable were Schroders deciding to sell Benchmark Capital to Söderberg & Partners after a contested auction process, and Palatine Private Equity agreeing to sell its investment in the advice firm My Pension Expert to California-based Valeas Capital Partners, marking two deals with parties from overseas. The others were Tavistock’s acquisition of Plus Group, an artificial intelligence-powered advice technology and back-office support provider, and Perspective Financial Group’s entry to Scotland with the acquisition of Phoenix Wealth Solutions.
With two transactions valued at more than £100m, M&A amongst larger businesses in the sector remained strong. In fact, there has been a near-record number of deals of that size YTD, often involving buyers and investors from outside of the UK, as seen above. It highlights the trend towards larger transactions fuelled by continuing strong interest in strategically significant assets by private equity (PE) funds as well as their portfolio companies. In the meantime, deal activity continues to be driven largely by consolidation among smaller wealth managers and financial advice firms.
PE accounted for the bulk of the volume of transactions, in most cases represented by their consolidator vehicles in the wealth management market. Only in a couple of deals were the targets not financial advice firms or integrated wealth managers. Instead, they were fintech businesses being pursued by a public company – Tavistock – in one case and a tech start-up in the other. In both, the acquisitions represent the opportunity to develop improved scalability in core propositions and complementing technology solutions.
Notable transactions (July 2026):
- Schroders announced the sale of Benchmark Capital to Söderberg & Partners. Benchmark oversees c.£31bn of assets under influence and includes the adviser networks Best Practice IFA, Oculus Wealth Management and Evolution Wealth, alongside the Fusion Wealth platform. The acquisition accelerates Söderberg’s ambition to add significant scale to its UK operations which will increase its UK client assets to c.£60bn with the deal.
- U.S. PE firm Valeas Capital Partners announced the acquisition of a majority stake in My Pension Expert. The Doncaster-based advice firm has £2bn in assets under advice, c.20,000 clients and plans to increase its headcount from 132 to 230 staff. The deal involved Valeas buying Palatine’s minority holding as well as shares from My Pension Expert’s management, resulting in an overall stake of 75% being taken.
- Tavistock Investments announced the acquisition of advice technology and back-office support business Plus Group. The deal enables Tavistock to improve automation capabilities for retail investors by leveraging Plus Group’s agentic artificial intelligence and financial planning technology.
Other UK transactions (July 2026):
- Perspective Financial Group announced the acquisition of Glasgow-based Phoenix Wealth Solutions, marking its first acquisition in Scotland.
- Clifton Wealth Partnership announced the acquisition of Suffolk-based financial planning firm Morgan Law Financial Services, adding £138m in assets under management.
- Fairstone announced it had acquired four financial planning firms, adding a total of c.£360m in client assets. The targets were Sunderland-based Grainger Financial Planning, Northumberland-based Riverstone Wealth Management and two Aberdeen-based City Gate Aberdeen and Albyn Associates.
- Finli Group announced it had acquired seven firms adding an aggregate of £269m in assets under management, including Tiverton-based Simply Advice, Nottingham-based David Pinder, Beverley-based Ashley Phillips, Birmingham-based Griffin Wylde, Flitwick-based Stellar FP, Edinburgh-based Croesus and Littlehampton-based John Robinson.
- Absolute Financial Group announced the acquisition of four financial planning firms, adding a combined £134m in assets under advice. The transactions included Canterbury-based Horton Independent Financial Planning, Eastbourne-based JM Financial Planning, Battle-based Paul Tune Financial Services and Chichester-based Clear Sense Financial Planning.
- The fintech business, Whistle, announced the acquisition of Pension Potential, a provider of an app-based digital retirement planning tool, from Punter Southall Group.
