Acquisitive wealth manager and Financial Planner Kingswood said group assets under advice and management (AUA&M) climbed to £12.9bn by the end of June, up 8.2% year-on-year.

The group said operating profits in the half year rose 21% to £6.1m while revenue was up 14% to £40.6m.

Announcing its results for the six months to the end of June, it said UK & Ireland assets under advice (AUA) were £6bn, boosted by the acquisition of Dublin retirement planning advice firm BasePlan, which was completed in February.

UK & Ireland assets under management (AUM) stood at £3.7bn by the end of June.

Last month Kingswood announced plans to raise a further £6m from investors to meet its debt obligations on previous acquisitions.

The company said the money would provide the capital to meet upcoming ‘deferred payment obligations’ on previous deals undertaken by the Company.

The company’s chief executive David Lawrence quit in July.

Kingswood said the £1.1m increase in operating profits to the end of June reflected “the benefit of acquisitions in the current period.”

It posted a statutory loss before tax for the period of £5.9m, an improvement of £3.9m against the restated comparable period last year when it lost £9.7m.

It said the losses were made up of £4.5m of finance costs incurred by the group on debt facility drawdowns, “reflective of the Group’s strategy to use leverage as an accelerant for growth.”.

On top of that it revealed £1.6m of non-recurring costs, including broker fees on M&A transactions and costs incurred to reposition the business.

There were also non-cash impacting items of £5.9m, including “amortisation of intangible assets, finance costs recognised on the unwinding of deferred consideration and preference share dividends.”

Peter Coleman, Kingswood chief executive, said: “Our focus is on providing a first-class experience to all of our clients, with the use of our excellent advice community, technology and range of investment propositions."

He said he was pleased with “the ongoing development of our IBOSS range of model portfolios and our in-house DFM both of which continue to flourish within the group.”

He added: “In UK&I we continue to be acquisitive with the addition of BasePlan, and we will continue to identify opportunities that enhance our growing business in this market.”