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Private equity-backed UK advice market consolidation

Journalist: Hereward Mills, FT Adviser

ended 18. May 2026

This week FT Adviser published a story about US private equity fuelling consolidation in the UK advice market. 

A report from Heligan Corporate Finance showed there were 133 merger and acquisition deals in 2025. 

Platforms backed by private equity accounted for 75 per cent of deals in 2025, up from 42 per cent in 2020.

Similarly, in 2025 18 private equity firms who invested in UK IFA platforms were from the US, up from two in 2020. 

Read all about it here - including a map with the full regional breakdown of the deals. 

Advisers: 

  • Are you concerned about large consolidator platforms acquiring smaller advice firms?
  • What are your views on the growing influence of private equity, particularly US private equity, in the UK advice market?
  • Are smaller independent firms coming under pressure to join consolidators in order to compete?
  • Could increased consolidation reduce consumer choice in the long term?
  • Have private equity-backed consolidators changed competitive dynamics in your local market?

Interested as always to hear your thoughts. 

Best, 

Hereward

 

 

3 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Paul Denley
CEO at Oakham Wealth Management
Consolidation brings capital, technology & scale, but wealth management remains a relationship business, not a manufacturing process. Many clients choose boutiques precisely to avoid becoming part of an institution - only to find themselves there after successive acquisitions.

Centralised investment propositions, standardised processes and margin pressure can erode the bespoke nature of advice. Clients who expected continuity may find themselves on their third or fourth firm, dealing with a revolving door of junior relationship managers rather than a trusted adviser who truly understands their needs.

Advice becomes efficient but impersonal. When firms scale up, clients can gradually be pushed towards off-the-shelf portfolios or tiered service structures. And there is a certain inevitability to what follows - advisers leaving large organisations to rebuild the bespoke client focus that attracted those clients in the first place, sowing the seeds of the next generation of independents.
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Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
I am not anti-growth and I am not anti-investment, but I am concerned when advice starts being treated like an asset to be packaged, scaled and sold rather than a relationship built around clients. Private equity can bring capital, technology and management, but the question is always: who is the model ultimately designed to serve?
Smaller independent firms are under pressure because compliance, technology, PI insurance and regulation are expensive. Consolidators can make the numbers look attractive. But if the market moves too far that way, we risk losing the personality, judgement and trust that make advice valuable.
My worry is not that firms get bigger. My worry is that consumer choice gets narrower and advice becomes standardised into a corporate process. Clients do not all fit one template. The future of advice should not be machines owning the client relationship. It should be firms with strong systems, strong ethics and enough independence to challenge, personalise and care.
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Alex Norwood
Director at N2 Asset Management
Consolidation is becoming an unavoidable feature of the UK advice market, but the pace and funding behind it are what stand out. Private equity investment can bring stronger technology, operational efficiency and succession solutions, yet it also introduces commercial pressures that have not traditionally been central to independent financial planning.

The growing involvement of US private equity is particularly notable, as many investors are approaching the sector with far more aggressive growth and acquisition models than the UK market has historically seen.

Smaller firms are clearly under pressure from rising regulatory costs, Consumer Duty obligations and recruitment challenges, making consolidation increasingly attractive. However, there remains strong demand for relationship-led advice, continuity and genuine independence.

The challenge for the industry is ensuring that scale and efficiency do not gradually reduce diversity, competition and consumer choice over time.