Hase Osborne Asset Management is based in Wendover, Buckinghamshire and offers wealth management and holistic Financial Planning to high net worth individuals. Hase has 14 staff providing specialist pensions, investment and tax planning advice to 650 clients.
The deal is the fourth in 2017 structured by Fairstone as what is calls a downstream buy out (DBO), a 'partnership' allowing steady transfer of ownership from Hase to Fairstone. In this case it has been followed by Hase being fully acquired by Fairstone. It brings total revenue of £2.1m to the Fairstone Group and funds under management of approximately £250m.
John Osborne, principal at Hase Osborne, said: “The acquisition by Fairstone allows us to continue to provide our clients with high quality independent financial advice with the support of a strong infrastructure so that we can fully focus on our clients and ensure they get the best possible investment options. We look forward to accessing Fairstone’s expertise to grow the business for the long-term benefit of clients and staff.”
Lee Hartley, chief executive of Fairstone, said: “Having worked with Hase Osborne through our proprietary DBO programme, we are very pleased to complete the final acquisition. This marks another significant step in our growth strategy and highlights our commitment to those firms which join our flexible buy out scheme. A number of businesses have joined us this year and the common factor is that clients are never commoditised and their interests are protected.
“We look forward to helping John and the team grow their business through the scale and support we can bring and with Fairstone’s whole-of-market proposition and the ability to manage client portfolios through our low-cost discretionary service we believe we can offer proven and unrivalled opportunities to our new partners.”
Fairstone is a national firm with 300 advisers and 130 staff acting for over 41,000 clients. It has £7.4 billion of client assets under management.
• Editor's note: updates made 3.45 pm, 25.10.17 to add extra information.