The UK wealth manager has furthered its market reach with the acquisition of Rowan Dartington.

St James's Place is to acquire Bristol-based fund manager Rowan Dartington for up to £34 million ($53 million).

Rowan Dartington, which manages over £1 billion in assets with 10 regional offices and 100 staff, will now form part of the St James's Place group. The firm's private client business specialises in financial planning and discretionary investment management, as well as stockbroking services.

St James's Place will pay an initial £19 million, with a further maximum sum of £15.2 million subject to performance.

“This opportunity will not only provide a strong platform for St. James’s Place to provide discretionary fund management services to high net worth clients, it will also enable Rowan Dartington to continue to develop and support the propositions and services to our existing and new private clients, as well as the broader UK financial adviser market,” said Rowan Dartington's executive chairman, Graham Coxell. 

Separately, in its half-year results statement, St James's Place said the buy would broaden its offering and help it to reach new clients.

The wealth manager also reported a seven per cent year-on-year dip in its underlying pre-tax profit to £72.9 million for the first half of 2015. It blamed its Financial Services Compensation Scheme levy, which almost trebled from £6.9 million to £20 million.

“Despite this significant cost, the sustained growth and maturity of our funds under management continues to provide growth in the underlying post tax cash result and the Board has declared a 20% increase in the interim dividend to 10.72 pence per share,” said the company's chief executive, David Bellamy. 

St James's Place enjoyed net fund inflows of £2.7 billion and funds under management reached £55.5 billion at the end of June, up 17 per cent from a year ago. Meanwhile, profits from new business grew 14 per cent to £205.9 million.

Bellamy added that recent recruitment efforts in the UK, expansion in Asia and continued success of the company's Academy had driven adviser numbers up 4.7 per cent since the start of the year, to 2,968.