Fairstone establishes West Midlands hub with Prosperity Wealth

Fairstone, one of the UK’s largest Chartered financial planning firms, today announces its investment in Dudley based Prosperity Wealth via its Downstream Buy Out (DBO) programme.

The deal creates the foundation for the group’s West Midlands Hub and is part of an evolving strategy which sees Fairstone backing the management teams of larger IFA firms to further expand on their existing regional presence.

Prosperity Wealth is led by Managing Director, Matt Bell and comprises a total 63 advisers and 23 operational staff who together support 5,000 clients with £1.5bn in assets under management. The award-winning team at Prosperity have a strong history of providing holistic, whole of market advice and have an extensive network of accountancy, banking and legal partners.

Fairstone CEO, Lee Hartley commented on the deal:

“It is a pleasure to welcome the Prosperity team to the Fairstone Group. Over the last 13 years the team has developed a hugely successful business in a geography that strategically, Fairstone has been keen to target.

The team are admirably ambitious and in recent years have harnessed the power of their professional connections to achieve significant organic growth alongside a strong local brand.

At Fairstone we are committed to a high-performance culture and investing in people is paramount to achieving this. Matt and the wider Prosperity management team have developed a recruitment and development programme that has and will continue to attract and nurture the best talent in the West Midlands.

They are a seriously impressive team, and I am really looking forward to working with them to amplify the success to date.”

Fairstone’s latest transaction also reinforces the flexibility of its proprietary DBO acquisition model and demonstrates that this proposition can support the growth potential of firms that are already operating at significant scale.

The Downstream Buy Out aligns with ambitious IFA firms who are committed to partnering with Fairstone to grow and secure an optimum capital valuation. Importantly this outcome is delivered whilst protecting staff, advisers and clients.

During the partnership period, Fairstone will act as an investment partner, providing the centralised resource, technology and capital to support the ongoing growth of the business ahead of a future sale. Fairstone’s investment enables partner firms to exceed their growth aspirations and maximise their future value.

Prosperity Wealth CEO, Matt Bell added:

“For a number of years we have looked for the right partner, in terms of values, culture and market credibility whilst maintaining full, whole of market independence. Collectively, we strive to give all clients a valued and trustworthy experience at every opportunity by putting them at the centre of everything that we do. We are all very excited to enter the next chapter of our journey with Fairstone.”