Kingswood to buy the IBOSS Group in £16m deal

Boosting assets under management to £3bn

Wealth and investment management group Kingswood is to acquire Harrogate-headquartered Metnor Holdings, pending regulatory approval.

Metnor is the holding company for Iboss Asset Management and Novus Financial Services.

Collectively they are known as the Iboss Group, which generated £3.3m ($4.4m, €3.9m) in revenue in the 12 months to 31 October 2021.

It employs 29 people, has over 6,000 clients and assets under advice/management sit at £1.4bn.

Kingswood’s fourth acquisition of 2021 will see the firm pay an initial cash consideration of £9.6m on closing, plus a maximum of £6.4m in deferred payments made over a two-year period.

There is also a performance-based earn out linked to the three-year Ebitda growth of Iboss AM.

Continuity and growth

Led by investment and managing director Chris Metcalf, Iboss AM provides managed portfolio services (MPS) and other investment solutions on an advisory and discretionary basis to UK advisers.

In addition to retaining the Iboss branding, Metcalf and his team will remain in charge of the investment strategy, implementation and servicing.

Novus is a regional independent financial advice firm servicing clients based predominately in the North of England.

Metcalf said the Iboss Group had “several potential suiters” before agreeing a deal with Kingswood.

“As part of the Kingswood Group, we will offer our new and existing Iboss users an exit strategy that will be one of the most attractive in the industry, something that adviser firms have been asking us to facilitate for some years now,” he added.

Kingswood’s UK chief executive, David Lawrence, said: “From our first meeting, we knew that blending the Iboss Group with Kingswood would create something special in the sector, harnessing the Iboss Group’s investment record, product range and open market IFA distribution with Kingswood’s existing discretionary investment expertise and rapidly growing financial planning businesses.”

While the Iboss Group may be the fourth acquisition for the company this year, Lawrence said Kingswood has a “strong pipeline of high-quality UK opportunities under negotiation, four of which are in the exclusive due diligence stage”.