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Interactive Investor has agreed to acquire its smaller rival Alliance Trust Savings from Alliance Trust in a deal valued at around £40 million.
Alliance Trust Chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said in a statement: ‘The Board is pleased to announce the sale of ATS to Interactive Investor.’
‘The two businesses are highly complementary and ATS customers, many of whom are Alliance Trust shareholders, will benefit from Interactive Investor’s similar low flat-fee structure, as well as its increased scale and focus,’ he added.
The deal, which is part of a wider trend towards consolidation in the wealth management industry, will see Interactive Investor increase it assets under management to £35 billion and add 100,000 new customers to its books, with a customer base of around 400,000 post-completion.
Interactive Investor continues to consolidate
‘This is another important step in our ambition to build the UK's best investment platform,’ CEO of Interactive Investor Richard Wilson said.
‘The acquisition brings together the country's two largest fixed price providers, adding significant scale to ii, and reinforcing our ability to deliver excellent choice, value and service to all our customers,’ he added.
In June 2017, Interactive Investor completed its acquisition of TD Direct Investing, which created the second largest investment platform in the UK with assets under administration of £21 billion and over 300,000 customers. The deal was valued at around £65 million.
Interactive Investor’s decision to acquire Alliance Trust Savings will not only help it to bolster its position in the UK, but has helped Alliance Trust to finally find a new home for its lossmaking investment platform, which posted a loss of £19.3m in 2017.
Alliance Trust also divested its in-house investment management unit to Liontrust Asset Management in 2017.