IFA

National wealth manager and consolidator Bellpenny has acquired two IFA firms with a combined £84m funds under management (FUM).

Tavistock Investments has acquired Cornwall-based IFA Duchy Independent Financial Advisers as part of its plan to assemble a national network of advisers.

Tavistock Investments has bought IFA Sutcliffe Solloway Financial Planning and its parent Cornerstone Asset Holdings, completing the deal that formed Tavistock Partners.

Networks don't collect enough money from their advisers to maintain sufficient systems and controls, which means they can only go one way - down, according to the chief executive of IFA network 2plan.

A former IFA has been jailed for ten years for defrauding investors of at least £3.5m in what has been branded a "classic Ponzi scheme".

An IFA and the directors of banking giants Goldman Sachs and Lloyds will head up the panels that raise the industry's voice on policy making to the ear of the regulator.

An IFA is to launch a non-advised investment proposition alongside its fully advised service to allow clients to "dip in and out of advice as they please".

National IFA Positive Solutions has seen its adviser numbers tumble 64% in the last five years, though the level of departures seems to have stabilised.

Adviser network Financial Ltd is looking for investment to secure the future of the business after pre-tax losses more than doubled in the year ending March 2014, latest results have shown.

Three IFAs are taking their case to the Court of Appeal in a bid to overturn a High Court ruling backing a Financial Ombudsman (FOS) decision that they should pay clients compensation for advice to invest in failed firm Keydata.