SIPP and SSAS provider and administrator InvestAcc has sold its Chartered Financial Planner business Vesta Wealth to its management in a £12m deal.
The Vesta Wealth business and Appointed Representative services business InvestAcc Limited will be sold to Vesta’s management.
Vesta is a Carlisle-based Chartered Financial Planner business and an investment and wealth manager. It has eight Financial Planners working in the Carlisle head office and a branch office in Stockton-on-Tees. It has been in business since 1992.
InvestAcc says it is selling non-core businesses via a secondary placing of Vesta management’s holding of shares in the company to support the transaction’s financing.
InvestAcc says the deal will enable it to focus on its specialist administration business and will also provide additional finance for future acquisitions.
Vesta Wealth Limited and InvestAcc Limited will be sold to Edengate Wealth Group Limited, a company owned by Nick Gardner, a director of Vesta Wealth Limited and InvestAcc Limited. The total cost of the sale will be £12m, representing 9.2x FY25 EBITDA, according to InvestAcc.
The deal requires FCA change of control approval. Once confirmed, the sale is expected to complete by early 2027.
Accompanying the sale will be a proposed secondary placing by Nick Gardner of up to 6.1m existing ordinary shares in the company (about 12.5% of the company's issued share capital) to fund the majority of the transaction.
InvestAcc says a number of other directors have indicated their intention to participate in the secondary placing including Mark Hodges, Will Self, Giovanni Castagno, Helen Copinger-Symes and Martin Potkins, directors of the company.
Under the terms of the deal, InvestAcc will receive £10m payable on completion and a further £1 million payable on the first and second anniversaries of completion with no performance conditions attached to the money.
The transaction was negotiated directly with Nick Gardner, owner of Edengate and currently a director of Vesta and IAL, InvestAcc says.
Vesta will continue to use InvestAcc as its preferred SIPP provider for at least two years following completion and IAL will be renamed prior to completion of the sale.
Mr Gardner is also a director of Ashby London (PP) Trustees Limited, Ashby London Trustees Limited, InvestAcc Holdings Limited, InvestAcc Pension Administration Limited, InvestAcc Pension Trustees Limited, Platinum (PP) Trustees Limited, Platinum Trustees Limited and Whitehead Trustees Limited, all subsidiaries of the company and will resign from their boards with immediate effect, InvestAcc said.
Mark Hodges, executive chairman of InvestAcc, said: “This disposal demonstrates our focus on the specialist pensions administration sector. We are pleased to have found a strong long-term owner in Edengate and Nick Gardner.
"I am also pleased that the secondary sale of shares brings additional liquidity to the company shares and I am grateful for the support of existing investors and delighted to welcome a number of the new high profile institutional investors to the company’s register of shareholders.”