Kingswood Holdings Limited (AIM: KWG), the international fully integrated wealth and investment management group, is pleased to announce that it has completed the acquisition of Regency Investment Services Limited (Regency), a high-quality IFA business which operates from Egham, Surrey. The transaction boosts Kingswood's client facing advisory team to 67 people and increases assets under advice/management to circa £5.0 billion from over 16,000 active clients.

Regency provides independent financial advice to individuals and corporates primarily in the Greater London area and currently employs 12 people including six IFAs advising on and managing £320 million AUA/AUM on behalf of circa 1,000 clients.

The business has been acquired for cash consideration of £3.45 million, payable over a 3-year period. £1.38m was paid at closing and the balance will be paid on a deferred basis subject to Regency meeting pre-agreed recurring revenue and EBITDA hurdles over a 3-year year period. An additional deferred payment of maximum £1.2 million is potentially payable at the end of the 3-year period subject to achievement of an excess EBITDA target over that period.

The company has a highly qualified and experienced team of financial advisers supported by a dedicated support team. Regency's continued success is built around developing and maintaining long-term client relationships, making the Regency team a perfect fit for Kingswood.

In addition to this acquisition, the second and final deferred consideration payment regarding Marchant McKechnie, a business acquired in October 2018, has been made. The business continues to perform well and in the first two years of ownership has exceeded the performance targets required in order for deferred consideration to be paid. 

The Regency acquisition, the Marchant McKechnie deferred consideration payment, plus some additional transaction related costs have been funded by Kingswood's issue of 2,900,000 new convertible preference shares, under the terms of its Convertible Preference Share subscription agreement with HSQ INVESTMENT LIMITED, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of funds managed and/or advised by Pollen Street Capital Limited ("Pollen Street"). The Company now has a total of 23,900,043 convertible preference shares in issue.

Gary Wilder, Group CEO at Kingswood, commented: "We are delighted to welcome Dominique Vinecombe and the Regency team to Kingswood. Dominique will continue to focus on delivering exceptional quality service to Regency's client base. We recognise over time the major opportunity to migrate existing and new clients to Kingwood's extensive and growing range of managed investment solutions on our DFM platform, underpinning the value of a fully integrated wealth and investment management business."

Link to RNS announcement