LONDON: InvestAcc Group, a UK pension administrator, said Thursday it has agreed to sell its wealth management and Appointed Representative businesses to a company owned by one of their directors for £12 million (about $16 million).

The buyer, Edengate Wealth Group Limited, is owned by Nick Gardner, a director of both businesses being sold: Vesta Wealth Limited, a firm of chartered financial planners and investment managers, and InvestAcc Limited, which provides Appointed Representative services. The price represents 9.2 times the businesses’ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the 2025 fiscal year.

InvestAcc will receive £10 million when the deal closes, subject to adjustments, and another £1 million on each of the first and second anniversaries of completion. The deferred payments carry no performance conditions.

The sale requires change-of-control approval from the Financial Conduct Authority, and the company expects it to close by early 2027.

The company said the sale lets it concentrate on specialist pensions administration, simplify its structure and reduce its exposure to regulatory changes affecting the wealth management and Appointed Representative sectors. It also said the deal gives it more financial flexibility to pursue acquisitions.

The businesses operate largely independently of the rest of the group and have limited customer overlap with its core operations, InvestAcc said. No transitional services are expected after the sale. Vesta will keep using InvestAcc as its preferred self-invested personal pension provider for at least two years following completion, and InvestAcc Limited will be renamed before the deal closes.

InvestAcc said the deal was negotiated directly with Gardner to ensure continuity for customers and employees through his continued leadership of the businesses.

Gardner plans to fund most of the purchase price by selling the 6,150,911 InvestAcc shares he holds, representing up to about 12.5% of the company’s issued share capital. The shares will be sold to institutional investors through an accelerated bookbuild, a fast-track process in which a bank gathers investor orders to set the price. InvestAcc said the offering would launch immediately and could close at short notice, depending on demand, price and market conditions.

Panmure Liberum Limited is acting as bookrunner for Gardner and will decide when the process closes and how many shares are allocated. InvestAcc said it is not issuing new shares and will receive no proceeds from the placing, which will go entirely to Gardner. The company said it will announce the results, including the final price and number of shares sold, as soon as practicable.

Directors Mark Hodges, Will Self, Giovanni Castagno, Helen Copinger-Symes and Martin Potkins have said they intend to take part in the placing.

Gardner also sits on the boards of eight InvestAcc subsidiaries, including InvestAcc Holdings Limited and InvestAcc Pension Administration Limited. He is resigning from those boards with immediate effect.

“This disposal demonstrates our focus on the specialist pensions administration sector,” Hodges, InvestAcc’s executive chairman, said in a statement. He said the company was pleased to have found “a strong long-term owner” in Edengate and Gardner, and welcomed the additional liquidity in its shares and several new institutional investors to its shareholder register.