The firm says it aims to grow the business both through organic expansion of its adviser base and through acquisition. It has a pre-approved war chest of cash earmarked for acquisitions of intermediaries operating in the corporate space.
Towry says the strategy is in part a move to diversify its business in other areas than its core activity of offering financial advice to high-net worth individuals.
The firm says it will follow the same strict 100 per cent fee approach to the employee benefits business as it has done to its individual operations. Between May and December 2006 it moved all of its individual clients onto a fee basis, and says it has not lost a single one of its target clients, those with at least £100,000 of investable assets, since making the switch.
It is currently in the process of switching its corporate clients to fees, a task it hopes to complete within two years. Corporate clients with legacy commission business that exceeds the firm’s fees are given credits for future work that will be done for them. It plans to target employers with between 25 and 1,000 staff, and will also offer discretionary management services to smaller defined benefit schemes.
It also intends to offer its own branded fund of funds as retail offerings by the middle of 2008, possibly labelled Towry Law Strategic, Balanced and Defensive.
Towry is currently owned 51 per cent by Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity firm, with the other 49 per cent of shares held by staff members, all of whom hold equity stakes.
Pan Andreas, head of employee benefits at Towry Law says: “We want to make employee benefits 50 per cent of group revenue within a decade. The firms and individuals we are looking to team up with are those that share our ethos of having very high technical qualifications and buying into the fee culture.”