LEBC Group has entered administration selling its client book to Aspira Corporate Holdings, another firm in the group as Citywire revealed last week.
It has the full support of BP Marsh, the private equity investor which is a major shareholder of LEBC Holdings – the parent company to both LEBC Group and Aspira.
Advisers will be mulling this quote in particular.
Derek Miles, chief executive of LEBC and Aspira, said: “This FCA-agreed combination is a logical consolidation of the two businesses’ expertise and will provide an enhanced proposition for our clients and their customers.
“All LEBC staff and personnel will be incorporated into Aspira, with the shared management team unchanged.
“I look forward to leading the combined company as we continue to provide high-quality advice to our expanded client base.”
FTAdviser gives a reasonable history of the firm in recent years. It notes the advice firm faced a challenging 2019 after voluntarily relinquishing its pension transfer permissions as a result of a FCA's defined benefit review.
It lost around 20% of its business as a result. But advisers will want to know what ‘FCA agreement’ means in terms of liabilities and the FSCS.
Over £30.6bn in “risky” mortgages was written by UK banks in the 12-month period to the end of March 2023, Mazars research has revealed as FTAdviser reports.
The Bank of England categorises a “risky” mortgage as one where the total amount borrowed is 4.5 times or more the salary of the borrower and that 86,000 of these “risky” mortgage sales were made over 2022/23.
The Saltus Wealth Index Report surveyed more than 2,000 people in the UK with investable assets of £250,000 to find that 19 per cent of non-working HNWIs already have plans in place to return to the workforce as a direct result of the changes to pension allowances as FTAdviser reports.
A further 35 per cent said they are considering returning to the labour market.
It would represent a coup for the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt because it is rare for a financial policy to have such a swift and direct impact. Of course, that may be due to the fact that for the age and income group concerned it is rather generous.
The number of dog funds has increased by 27% since February 2023 according to the latest ‘Spot the Dog’ report as Money Marketing writes.
Bestinvest named 56 equity investment funds, a 27% increase on the 44 dog funds in the last study published last week.
An increasing challenge for investors and perhaps allocators is the relative narrowness in terms of the success of certain stocks and indices in this altogether rather odd economic and investment context.
The history of commercial relationships between building societies and insurers has a bit of mixed record certainly for those who can remember that far back such as this reviewer.
However, fund supermarkets have always offered a potential route for improved choice.
So it is interesting that Aegon has extended its partnership with Nationwide Building Society which will see its advisers join Aegon’s online offering Investor Portfolio Service.
Professional Adviser reports that the needs of 90,000 financial planning customers will now be serviced by Aegon.
It would be really interesting to see all these services with lots of customers compared and scrutinised. For example, how many clients are there per adviser?
