News

FEBRUARY 2024

HURST POINT GROUP YEAR END UPDATE AND ANNOUNCEMENT OF A GROUP REORGANISATION AND PERSONNEL CHANGES

Wealth management business Hurst Point Group (‘Hurst Point’ or the ‘Group’) ended 2023 with just under £10 billion of gross Assets Under Advice or Management (AuA/M). This includes approximately £4.75 billion of Assets under Advice in its financial planning business, which operates primarily under the Argentis brand and has approximately 120 advisers – and approximately £4.95 billion of Assets under Management of £4.95 billion in its investment management business, which operates primarily under the Hawksmoor brand, and has approximately 25 investment managers and some 15 other portfolio managers and investment research staff.

Hurst Point aims to become a well-established industry leader with a nationwide presence over time, by providing its clients with excellent experiences through the expertise of its advisers and investment professionals, and the dedicated support of its service teams.

 The Group is also today announcing a re-organisation and some personnel changes in line with its plans to become a more integrated business. The Group has conducted a review of its structure to consider how best to enhance the alignment and collaboration between its businesses and management teams. As a result, the Board has concluded that the Group should become more integrated, by removing layers and certain areas of duplication across the business which the Board believe will bring the Group closer to its clients and help support its future growth strategy.

Accordingly, it is amalgamating functional activities across the Group into four central functions, namely Finance; Legal, Risk & Compliance; Human Resources; and IT, Transformation & Facilities. The Group is also aligning its management structures under new Management Committees, which will report into the Group Executive Committee, and be led by Group CEO, Ian Gladman (Financial Planning) and Hawksmoor Investment Management CEO, Sarah Soar (Investment Management).

There are some personnel-related changes that the Group is announcing today in connection with the re-organisation and the creation of functional teams, including the appointment of Andrew Westenberger as Group CFO to lead the Finance team, replacing Michael Kerrison who has left the Group to pursue other interests; the appointment of Ed Renwick, General Counsel, to lead the Legal, Risk & Compliance team; and the appointment of Alex Knott, Chief Technology and Transformation Officer, to lead the IT, Transformation & Facilities team. All appointments are subject to regulatory approval where applicable.

The Group is also announcing today that John White will be leaving the Group at the end of April 2024, due to his own change of priorities and the change in his role envisaged with the re-organisation. This was agreed some time ago and his responsibilities as Managing Director will transfer to the Group CEO and members of the Financial Planning Management Committee. The Group is well-advanced in discussions around the recruitment of a leader of its financial planning adviser team, working closely with its Regional Managers and alongside the Financial Planning leadership team. Suitable interim arrangements will be put in place if necessary.

The Group has also been reviewing its investment business with a view to aligning both the activities of its investment teams and the underlying investment philosophy and processes that underpin the products and services offered to clients. As a result, Ben Conway, who currently leads the Hawksmoor Fund Managers funds business, has been appointed Chief Investment Officer for Hawksmoor and Chair of the Investment Committee. To align the Group’s research activities under a consistent investment philosophy, the Research team will also report to Conway. Alan Durrant has in turn been appointed Group Investment Director and will remain a member of the Hurst Point Group Executive Committee and Board.

The Board has expressed its sincere gratitude to both White and Kerrison for their hard work and contribution to the Group. White took on his role in September 2021 and has since then made a significant contribution to the creation of a single unified financial planning business, with a consistent set of propositions, operating primarily under the Argentis brand, and now also working through a single back-office platform and set of operational processes. He and the strong financial planning leadership team have laid solid foundations on which the business can develop in the future. Kerrison meanwhile joined in October 2020 and established the Group finance function, leading it effectively over the last three years, and has also been integral to transformation across the Group. The Board thanks both White and Kerrison, wishing them all the very best for their future endeavours, while also welcoming Andrew Westenberger. With his considerable experience of private equity over his career and wealth management through his time as Group CFO of Brewin Dolphin plc, the Board is delighted that he has agreed to join the Group and looks forward to working with him.

Commenting on the changes, Hurst Point Group CEO, Ian Gladman said: “I believe the Group re-organisation and personnel changes announced today will make our business fit for the next stage of our development. We have grown from a standing start to just under £10 billion of AuA/M in under four years with the support of Carlyle and other capital providers. We have ambitions to continue our growth in the coming years, although size itself is less important than serving our clients well.

“I would like to thank all the colleagues that have helped and supported the review of our structure. John’s decision to step away from the business, given the change in his personal priorities, makes sense, but we will miss him as a colleague and his wise counsel on the Board. We will also miss Michael’s dedication and financial acumen. We wish them both well in their future endeavours.”

John White added: “I’ve enjoyed a long, and I’d like to think, successful career in financial planning and wealth management, in various senior management roles – and I have most certainly enjoyed my time with Hurst Point. I have however, and for some time, harboured an ambition to develop other interests. Given the changes underway to Hurst Point Group’s structure, and my desire to work a little closer to home, this seemed an entirely logical time to pursue my long-time interest in coaching and consulting.”

OCTOBER 2023

HURST POINT GROUP ACQUIRES HELM GODFREY

Following FCA regulatory approval, leading UK wealth management business Hurst Point Group (‘Hurst Point’ or ‘the Group’), is pleased to confirm the completion of its acquisition of Helm Godfrey, a London-based firm providing specialist financial planning and investment management services. The acquisition advances Hurst Point’s ambition of becoming a truly national wealth management business, with a presence in major cities across the UK. It has been made possible by the continuing support of Hurst Point’s majority shareholder Carlyle (NASDAQ: CG) the global investment firm, and debt providers Ardian and Investec.

Helm Godfrey has c.£1bn in assets under advice (‘AuA’) and c.£0.45bn of assets under management (‘AuM’). The acquisition will bring Hurst Point's total AuA to approximately £5bn and its total AuM to approximately £5bn. With c.£2bn of common AuA/M, Hurst Point's net AuA/M is now c.£8bn. The transaction has added some 2,500 clients and increased the number of financial advisers working across the Group to 120. With 65 employees, Helm Godfrey’s investment management team will now become part of Hawksmoor, Hurst Point's Investment Management division, whilst its financial planning team will be incorporated into Argentis, the Group's Financial Planning division. Commenting on the transaction, John White, Managing Director of Argentis said, “We are excited to welcome the team at Helm Godfrey to the Group and look forward to building our City of London hub.”

Hurst Point Group is pursuing a co-location strategy, seeking to establish both a financial planning and investment management operation in the towns or cities in which it establishes a presence. The Helm Godfrey presence will complement the existing Hawksmoor office in London. An agile business, with high-quality backers providing access to capital to support its growth, the last year saw Hurst Point make nine acquisitions, including Sussex-based Metis Asset Management and Metis Wealth, as well as advice firms Robinson Financial Solutions, PSG Financial Solutions and Southern Independent Financial Consultancy; the Group also acquired Gore Browne Investment Management.

November 2022

Hurst Point Group acquires Metis and Gore Browne

Hurst Point Group Limited (“Hurst Point” or “the Group”) is delighted to announce that, following FCA regulatory approval being granted, the acquisitions of GBIM Limited (“GBIM”, trading as Gore Browne Investment Management), Metis Wealth Limited and Metis Asset Management Limited (both “Metis”), have now completed. 

GBIM provides bespoke investment management services through its team of experienced Investment Managers, with offices in Salisbury and Harrogate. The acquisition aligns squarely with the Group’s geographic goals of building a national wealth management business and, where possible, co-locating its Investment Management and Financial Planning activities.  The Group has a presence in both Salisbury and the Leeds area through the acquisition of Gallagher’s wealth division and recently added a presence in Harrogate through the acquisition of Robinson Financial Solutions. The addition of GBIM will increase the Group's bespoke discretionary portfolios by approximately £500m (to approximately £1.5bn) and the number of Investment Managers to over 30.  GBIM, led by CEO Mark Arkwright, will continue to operate under the Gore Browne Investment Management name until the business is fully integrated. The acquisition brings together two like-minded business partners, with strong cultural alignment and a long-standing history of working together.

Metis is a financial planning business with Assets under Advice of approximately £750m and a further £200m of Assets under Management in their in-house discretionary model portfolios, with offices in London and West Sussex.  Metis brings unrivalled expertise in providing financial planning advice to High Net Worth and professional services clients. These are priority client segments where the Group intends to further develop its offering together with the Metis team, headed by Simon Arthur and George Delaney. Metis will add 6 more employed financial advisors to the Group’s Financial Planning division, while Metis Asset Management will become part of the Group’s Investment Management division.  

Together with the acquisitions announced to date this year, Metis and GBIM bring the total Assets under Advice or Management (“AuA/M”) of the Group from approximately £5.5bn at the start of the year to over £7.0bn. Within this, total Group AuM has now risen to more than £4.0bn.  The addition of the Metis portfolios will increase the range and scale of Hawksmoor Investment Solutions, which provides model portfolios and customised fund solutions to both internal and third party IFAs, to over £2.0bn, of which approximately half relates to assets managed for advice clients of the Group.

The transactions allow both Metis and GBIM shareholders to realise the value of their investments and, in both cases, ongoing management have agreed to roll over a portion of their existing shareholdings into shares of Hurst Point Group, consistent with our goal of promoting ongoing equity participation and the alignment of interests across the Group.

The Group will continue to consider further acquisitions of high-quality businesses and has a strong pipeline of opportunities under consideration.

March 2021

Hurst Point Group completes acquisition of Hawksmoor

Hurst Point Group is delighted to announce that, following FCA regulatory approval being granted, the acquisition of Hawksmoor Group Limited (“HGL”) completed on March 1st 2021. The transaction allows Hawksmoor shareholders, including many who supported the company’s launch, to realise value for their investment in the company. A number of key Hawksmoor shareholders, the majority of whom are staff, have agreed to roll over a portion of their holdings in HGL into shares in Hurst Point Group.  

Hurst Point Group was established in 2019 to facilitate investment by The Carlyle Group into the UK wealth management sector. It made its first investment in March 2020 with the acquisition of Harwood Wealth Management plc via a public scheme of arrangement. HGL will become a separate subsidiary of Hurst Point Group, who intend to support its core strategy of growth in the areas of investment management and specialist funds where it has historically had great success.  

Sarah Soar, Hawksmoor CEO, said: “Today marks a landmark in the history of Hawksmoor. Becoming part of the Hurst Point Group gives us support to grow and develop our investment and fund management business in line with our strategic objectives, as well as to improve our ability to deliver the highest quality service to our clients.”

Ian Gladman, Executive Chairman of Hurst Point Group said: “We are delighted to have completed this acquisition and welcome our new clients and colleagues from Hawksmoor into the Group. Hawksmoor’s investment and fund management expertise and their distinctive offerings bring a new dimension to the Group, creating benefits to clients and opportunities for the future. We are already working together to deliver the future benefits of our partnership.”