Fairstone CEO: We buy firms that don't want to sell

Lee Hartley (pictured) laughed when I ask him at our first meeting if his end game is to sell to a product provider. "You don't pull any punches do you?" As CEO of Fairstone - a group that from a business view acts more like the private equity firms that back it than most financial advisers - he should have expected it. Chartered, independent, and a national, the advice firm was formed in 2007 as Moneygate, rebranding in April 2015. But the real work began in 2010, when the firm first decided to expand seriously. To pay for growth it has sold stakes to a quartet of private equit...