Glasgow adviser buys Pru spin-off in 'first of a number of acquisitions'

GNB's Richard Gilliand, who established the Chartered financial planning and wealth manager 18 years ago, said its purchase of Bishopsbriggs-based Prudent Financial Management aligned with the firm's growth strategy.  

"We're quite ambitious and we want to grow the business and as part of that growth, we have been looking around to acquire another IFA or Chartered financial planning business," he said.

Gilliand said after an extensive search GNB found Prudent, founded by former Prudential executives George Bryce, James Wilson and Stephen Brady 20 years ago, to fit their criteria.

"That criteria was really that it was a well-established business with a good quality client base at a size which would fit into our own business," he said

The acquisition will bring GNB's total funds under management (FUM) to more than £100m, adding some £20m of assets.

"We are still growing significantly and we are looking for other acquisitions - we hope this will be the first of a number, but we would emphasise that we are looking for the right type of acquisition, we're not looking for acquisitions for the sake of it," he added.

The wealth manager will take one paraplanner from Prudent while the firm's founders are expected to retire.

GNB hired an additional IFA in Veronica Thomas this year and Gilliand said the firm would be looking to expand its workforce as the business grew.

"We're growing our business month on month, we are bringing in new business of about £1m per month, that's about £15m a year, equivalent to about 16% growth," he said.

GNB managing director and Chartered financial planner Ailsa Brown said GBN catered for a growing cohort of clients who sit in the middle of the wealth spectrum.

"A lot of the stockbroking firms... will give advice to people with a couple of million pounds under management. There's a shrinking of the markets at the smaller end so we fit nicely into that bit in the middle where clients are being overlooked by some of those bigger firms now," she said.

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