UK-based Seven Investment Management is to convert into a limited liability partnership, in an "entirely logical move" permitting the reorganisation of what it said had become a "series of complicated layers of differing shares structures", WealthBriefing has learnt.

"Under an LLP we will be able to introduce a longer-term view of the business and especially in terms of a long-term staff incentive plan, which is what the regulator has been encouraging the industry to do," a spokesperson said, adding that the firm would expect, in due course, that somewhere in the region of 30 per cent of advisors could aspire to become a partner.

In other news at Seven IM, in late May it began offering a deposit service, allowing financial planners to take business from private banks by competing with their services for high net worth clients.

“Private banks, with some notable exceptions, are often bad versions of high street banks, with high rates,” Justin Urquhart Stewart, director and co-founder of the firm, told WealthBriefing at the time. “Regulation is moving in a different direction with the RDR (Retail Distribution Review).”