Financial planning firm the Citimark Partnership and discretionary fund manager (DFM) Bowmore Asset Management have joined forces to form the London- and Bristol-based Bowmore Wealth Group.
As part of the merger, the Citimark Partnership, which has over 450 high net worth clients, will be re-branded as Bowmore Financial Planning.
The group will have over 25 staff working across financial planning and asset management with more than £350m of assets under advice.
The average client portfolio managed by Bowmore Asset Management is £1m in size.
Each portfolio has between 25-30 funds, which give access to approximately 1,700 individual holdings.
Mark Incledon, who founded the Citimark Partnership over 30 years ago, will be chief executive while Christian Yates, formerly of Lazard Asset Management, Chase Asset Management and Julius Baer, will be chairman.
Citimark’s co-director Gill Millen has been appointed managing director of Bowmore Financial Planning.
‘We’ve never been entirely satisfied with outsourcing investment management’
Incledon said: “Over the decades, we’ve never been entirely satisfied with outsourcing investment management. Primarily due to inconsistencies in investment performance and service.
“Hence, we’ve established our own fully authorised discretionary fund manager. This provides our clients with a more dedicated service which is 100% aligned with their objectives.
“For me, there were several issues I wanted to resolve, primarily associated with inconsistent performance and inaccurate representation of a clients attitude towards risk.
“The final nail in the coffin came after a comprehensive review of an asset manager’s long-term performance.
“Our findings showed the figures to be vastly different between regional offices. An asset manager must provide consistency and predictability, something that we now have developed a solution for.”
In March 2020, Citimark Partnership completed the acquisition of Trigon Financial Services, which added a further £60m to its assets under advice.
This formed part of the group’s strategic growth plans and the firm said it is “now poised for further acquisitions as well as some senior hires”.
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