Chartered Financial Planner Fairstone has bought Darlington-based Belasis IFA.

The acquisition is Fairstone’s fifth in recent months.

The company says the purchase highlights the strength of its proprietary Downstream Buy Out (DBO) model in integrating IFA firms into the group.

The acquisition brings additional gross fee income of £500,000 to Fairstone, together with funds under management of another £50m.

In addition, 1,250 clients and the business’ five advisers and two support staff will join Fairstone.

Belasis IFA offers a range of personal and corporate financial advice and specialises in retirement planning, investment portfolio management, equity release mortgages, VCT & EIS investments and protection.

Lee Hartley, chief executive of Fairstone, said: “Having worked with Belasis IFA through our proprietary DBO programme over a number of years we are delighted to complete the final acquisition with the business.

“The whole team at Belasis have a shared ambition with Fairstone to further grow their operation and with our support in areas such as client activation, marketing, compliance and regulation, we are able to help partners such as Belasis achieve very significant levels of organic growth.

“We are delighted to finalise this deal and bring such a well-respected business into Fairstone.

“This marks an outstanding end to the year and underlines our intent to partner with high-quality firms who share our culture as well as our approach to ensuring client interests are never compromised as a result of a sale.”

A statement from Belasis IFA company principals, Stewart Hodgson and Craig Dyball, read: “Over the years we have developed a very strong service and investment proposition.

“As such, we wanted to find a well-established firm with strong ethical standards to support our proposition and help us to build our business, without eroding the high levels of service we provide to our clients. 

“Fairstone’s general ethos and philosophy thoroughly enhances this attitude for the benefit of our clients.

“We look forward to working even more closely together to allow the business to reach its full potential.”