Financial adviser Frenkel Topping is to shift its acquisition strategy away from the IFA market due to a lack of “suitable” targets.

In its interim results published today, the financial advisory group said it will refocus its acquisitions strategy towards the personal injury and clinical negligence markets as it considers “this approach to be a more effective and less risky method of increasing the group's AUM and will yield higher levels of organic growth than a traditional IFA firm.”

Richard Fraser, CEO at Frenkel Topping, said: “Over the past two years, we have extensively sought to acquire other IFAs which would be accretive to the group. During this period, we have carefully assessed a number of targets and, due to the disciplined nature of the Board's search, none were deemed suitable.”

In June Frenkel Topping launched a joint venture, ExpressFT, with personal injury specialists Express Solicitors. The 50/50 joint venture, the third signed by Frenkel, provides advice to Express clients who have received personal injury settlements.

Frenkel also acquired forensic accountancy firm Forth Associates in July.

It has raised £13m for further acquisitions, according to the interim results.

Frenkel Topping employs a number of Chartered and Certified Financial Planners and some are members of the Society of Later Life Advisers (Solla). The group includes Ascencia Investment Management and Obiter Wealth Management.

In its results, the group reported revenues of £4.4m for the first half of 2020, a rise of 9% from last year (H1 2019: £4.1m). Assets under management rose by 13% to £962m (H1 2019: £851m).

Mr Fraser said: “The second half of the year has begun positively, and we are trading in line with management expectations. The board is of course mindful of the effects of Covid-19 and prevailing economic uncertainty.

“We have already begun to see businesses collapse and together with rising unemployment, the medium-term outlook for the global economy is difficult to predict. However, we have a strong and agile business which has benefited from investment in the last two years. This has enabled us to deliver an excellent financial and operational performance and partially mitigate the risk the pandemic has presented.

“We have made progress against our new disciplined strategy through the acquisition of Forths and the recent fundraising will support our aim to consolidate a fragmented PI and Clinical Negligence market, enabling us to scale routes into growing AUM mandates from successful claims.”