Bridgepoint Acquires Quilter

Quilter, a specialist private client wealth management group, has been acquired by European private equity firm Bridgepoint from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. Quilter’s clients include high net worth individuals, charities and trusts, pension funds, corporate bodies and friendly societies. The business employs approximately 350 staff via a regional network of 13 offices throughout the UK, Jersey and Ireland.

PRESS RELEASE

Quilter & Co. Ltd (‘Quilter’), the specialist private client wealth management group, has been acquired by European private equity firm Bridgepoint from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
With approximately £7.6 billion of funds under management (as at 31 December 2011), Quilter’s clients include high net worth individuals, charities and trusts, pension funds, corporate bodies and friendly societies. The business employs approximately 350 staff via a regional network of 13 offices throughout the UK, Jersey and Ireland and can trace its ancestry back to 1777.
Michael Black, partner at Bridgepoint said: “Quilter is a long-established and highly regarded UK private client wealth management business operating in a large but fragmented market favoured by underlying structural growth drivers. As such, we believe that there is every opportunity for Quilter to accelerate its growth organically as well as make complementary acquisitions for the business.”
The UK wealth management market includes investable assets of c.£1 trillion of which £400 billion relates to the discretionary wealth management market targeted by Quilter. This part of the market remains under-penetrated and is forecast to grow further favoured by factors such as the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions, increasing personal savings and investment and the shift by the IFA market to outsourced investment management.
Quilter CEO Martin Baines said: “Under Bridgepoint ownership, Quilter will not only continue to do what it has always done best, provide highly personal investment management services to advisers and individuals, but also grow and extend what it can offer its clients.”
Advisers involved in this transaction were: for Bridgepoint – Oliver Wyman (market due diligence), PWC (financial due diligence), Evercore (corporate advisory), Linklaters (legal); for management – Weil Gotshal Manges (legal).