UK financial group AFH has increased the size of its second share issue of 2017 to meet investor demand. The most recent issue has been raised from GBP15 million to GBP17.5 million and comes after April’s GBP10 million issue, which was similarly sold out.
AFH chief executive Alan Hudson (pictured), welcomed the “resounding vote of confidence” in the group.
“All our current institutional investors have increased their stakes in the group, and we picked up a number of major new institutional investors with this issue,” says Hudson. “Following on the success of our last issue, we see this as demonstrating continuing confidence in the company and an endorsement of its strategy.”
The money raised will give AFH a GBP20 million-plus war chest to continue its twin-track expansion strategy of merging with other companies and continuing to grow its client base through its team of 165 financial advisers, who cover the whole of the UK.
“Our core business is growing strongly, organically,” says Hudson. In the last financial year AFH notched up 20 per cent organic growth and now serves around10,000 clients, with GBP2.7 billion under management.
“That growth, allied to our policy of selective acquisitions of businesses that share our client-first vision, gives us better purchasing power and allows us to attract top talent to our adviser team, as well as expanding our in-house expertise and support for advisers and clients.
“Our strategy is all about giving benefit to clients rather than just consolidation for financial engineering.”
And AFH’s selective acquisition policy means it is still interested in smaller deals. While this week it announced its purchase of Colchester-based Britton Financial, which had 500 clients and GBP57m under management, Alan said the group was looking to acquire businesses of all sizes, including small retiring IFAs.
Looking to the future, Alan sees continuing growth.
“Our model, and the support we’re continuing to see from investors, means a growing client base, and that in turn means we’ll need more high quality advisers to service our existing and future clients,” says Hudson.
