Sanlam UK has sold its 23 per cent stake in Intrinsic Financial Services to Old Mutual Wealth for an undisclosed sum, a move coming after OMW said it had agreed to acquire Intrinsic.

Sanlam UK said today it has sold its 23 per cent stake in Intrinsic Financial Services to Old Mutual Wealth for an undisclosed sum, a move coming after OMW said it had agreed to acquire Intrinsic. (See here.)

The sale demonstrated Sanlam UK’s desire to focus more on growing and developing its own advice-led wealth management business in the UK, it said in a statement.

Under the terms of the Old Mutual Wealth/Intrinsic deal, it brings together Intrinsic’s network of 3,000 independent and restricted advisors with Old Mutual Wealth’s investment platform and asset management solutions.

Today’s announcement is yet another example of how, in the aftermath of the Retail Distribution Review regulatory changes, wealth managers and advisors have presided over a flurry of M&A deals, in some cases to build economies of scale, while others get out of businesses seen as “non-core”.

“This has been a successful association for Sanlam UK and this deal allows us to achieve greater focus in respect of our selected client target market and the segments of retail financial services in which we wish to operate and compete,” Lukas van der Walt, chief executive of Sanlam UK, said.

Sanlam UK is part of Sanlam Limited, the international financial services group headquartered in South Africa. (To see an interview with part of the Sanlam business in the UK, see here.)