Fast-growing Bristol-based wealth manager and Financial Planning firm Clifton Wealth Partnership has acquired two Scottish Financial Planning firms, for undisclosed amounts.
The two new firms to join Clifton are Fife-based Cairn Independent and Glasgow-based JRW.
Together the businesses add close to £150m AUM to Clifton, increasing the group’s total AUM to more than £3.5bn.
Cairn Independent was founded by Robert Young who first set up the business as part of Carlisle Insurance and Financial Services. It became Cairn Independent in 2011 and looks after 250 family groups today. Mr Young is retiring from financial services.
Cairn’s Financial Planning team, including director and Chartered Financial Planner David Cameron-Harper, Financial Planner Aaron O’Neill, senior paraplanners Teresa Lambert and Andrew Mackay, paraplanner Emma Mollison and administrator Subhan Parvaiz will stay on with the business.
Cairn’s operations director Laura Young, will take on an expanded role as regional financial planning support manager at Clifton. Ms Young said: “There were lots of things we wanted to be able to do as a business around technology, platforms and systems both for our clients and our own team day-to-day. Clifton’s long-standing technology focus will make these things possible for us.
“We’ve always been proud to be part of the amazing Financial Planning community here in Scotland and I’m really looking forward to spending time with firms across the region as part of my new role.”
JRW was established in 2016, and provides Financial Planning services to 300 clients in Glasgow and across Scotland. Company director and Financial Planner Ian Walsh, will stay on as a consultant for JRW for a year after the acquisition. Adviser Jonathan Shaw will continue with the business alongside administrator Amy Baillie.
Mr Walsh, Director of JRW, said: “The majority of our clients at JRW are local to the Lanarkshire and Glasgow area so a big priority for us was to keep our team and office base here in Blantyre after I retire.
“Some acquirers would want us to relocate or leave the area but Clifton were very supportive of us staying here and maintaining continuity for our clients. I know a lot of my clients extremely well, so it’s really important to me that we give them time to get comfortable with this change.”
In recent times Clifton has been very busy on the acquisitional trail. In December it acquired Welsh Financial Planning firm Lifestyle Financial Advice for an undisclosed amount.
It was the tenth advice business to join Clifton Wealth in 2025. It completed the acquisitions of nine other financial planning businesses from across England and Wales over the year, adding £721m AUM and 26 team members during 2025.
Clifton Wealth Partnership is a Financial Planning and wealth management business and is part of the Bristol-based Clifton Group, which has more than 13,000 clients, 154 employees and £3bn in assets under management.
in October 2024 UK private equity firm CBPE Capital LLP made a “strategic investment” in the firm to be partly used to speed up Clifton's acquisition programme.