On a path to achieve national coverage, IWP has made its sixth IFA acquisition gaining a foothold in the northwest.

With plans to scale up to around 50 UK offices in 2020, Independent Wealth Planners (IWP) has purchased chartered financial planner Prosper Wealth Management to create its sixth regional hub and first to serve Lancashire and the Greater Manchester area.

The Wigan-based wealth manager, founded in 2004 by David Barton, will become IWP’s main hub in the region, with Barton leading operations and any future expansion in the area. The deal will add £1.35 million in gross fees and £170 million in funds under management pushing IWP’s total assets managed to over £1 billion, the group said yesterday.

Prior to being an acquisition target, the retirement planning business had made a couple of smaller IFA purchases in the northwest and will net IWP 486 new clients and four advisors in the region.

Prosper owner Barton said: “Having previously built Prosper both organically and through acquisitions, I completely understand the logic behind the IWP model. I had ambitions to grow Prosper Wealth significantly over the coming years. However, to achieve this, I really needed more support."

IWP offers infrastructure support for UK independent financial advisory firms which cover compliance, IT services, investment research, marketing, and recruitment and training. In November, the manager-owned group announced plans to launch a new national brand of IFAs in 2020 building around 50 offices, and raising AuM to £2 billion.

A more centralised services approach has become attractive to locally owned advisory firms wanting to offset rising compliance and technology costs while retaining ownership and still being able to grow through the more competitive pricing models and support that scale can bring.