Saltus launches Partnership Programme to provide tailored support for financial planning firms looking to maximise value

Saltus has launched a landmark new business unit that will partner with financial planning businesses to maximise their value, whether that is driving performance and growth or considering options for selling.

The Saltus Partnership Programme will work with ambitious firms to address the biggest challenges throughout their lifecycle – from scaling their businesses to eventual exit. It will provide a flexible set of resources, including specialist teams, advice and financial support to help firms make the most of their opportunities, enhance the service they offer to clients and enable them to scale most effectively.

The service has been designed so that advisers can maximise capital value in their business and realise it at a time of their choosing, either along the growth journey or when they ae ready to exit.

The Saltus Partnership Programme enables financial planning business owners to pick and choose a model and approach that fits them as partners. This application of the model is critical to ensure that clients and colleagues are at the centre of any solution. Operational support spans compliance, technology, HR, bookkeeping, marketing, sales, and growth capital – and can be  flexed to the needs of an individual firm.

Technology sits at the core of the Saltus Partnership Programme, with a significant number of firms in the market still to catch-up with where the industry is today. Many financial planning businesses are still on single platform solutions and this shift needs to be far easier. The Saltus Partnership Programme provides bulk replatforming for partners within months, not years.

The programme launches with three partners: Temple Row, Calton Wealth Management and Indaba, who collectively manage over £200m of assets. The business unit is being led by Saltus Partner Mike Stimpson, reporting to Managing Partner, Jon Macintosh.

Jon Macintosh,  Managing Partner of Saltus, said: “We have experienced first-hand the growth pains financial planning business owners feel because we have been through it ourselves over the last 20 years. The Saltus Partnership Programme is a direct response to those challenges, which have not been addressed by anything else in the market to date and have been completely failed by the network business model, which has proven to be broken and unsustainable.

“Access to growth capital is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges facing firms looking to scale, and one that has been exacerbated by the current funding climate, with interest rates on the rise and availability of credit a constant issue. The Saltus Partnership Programme will provide ambitious financial planning businesses with easy access to capital to help them grow, and we can do this because we understand them, their business model and what drives them, meaning we can make quick decisions. The more a partner is aligned with us, the more we can lend and the faster they can scale.

“Equally, for firms that might be beginning to entertain the possibility of a sale, our programme provides an opportunity to provide certainty, maximise value and allow the business owner the opportunity to set a timetable that works for them, their clients and their colleagues.

“What all partners have in common is a deeply rooted desire for their clients to be looked after with the highest standards of client service and a requirement for a high-quality investment solution to give their clients the best possible chance of achieving their financial goals. This is a hugely exciting moment for Saltus and is an evolution of what we have done previously, where we have looked around the market and not found a solution ourselves, so we have built it.”

Mike Stimpson, Partner at Saltus leading the Saltus Partnership Programme, said: “This programme is about giving advisers a habitat they can thrive in, where they can offload all the difficulties and challenges that come with growth and continue doing what they love, looking after and delivering for their clients.

“As financial planning businesses scale, the complexity of delivery increases exponentially and can significantly limit growth potential. As a firm takes on more clients, it needs more advisers to deliver – all while the regulatory burden increases. At present, the only options available to an ambitious, entrepreneurial financial planner are to remain a small firm or to become part of a network, with no middle way for someone wanting to retain control over their business and scale at the same time.

“Fundamentally, the Saltus Partnership Programme is designed for advisers that want to maximise value and maintain control of their own destiny whether they are at the beginning or the end of the business journey.  They care deeply about the service their clients receive, are being constrained by the compliance, technology and capital challenges they face, and who feel unable to maximise the value of their business due to a lack of access to growth capital. The Saltus Partnership Programme removes the negatives and does so in a commercially sustainable way. It is the antidote to networks and the way things have been done in the past.”

Tom Ham, Founder of Calton Wealth Management, said: “The Saltus Partnership Programme allows us to access the pieces of support we need, when we need it. We’ve been very impressed with the help and performance for our investment proposition, while also providing the benefit of their hard won experience of scaling a business like ours.

“Being able to choose what elements of support we need and when in a way that means we keep control over our own destiny and how we run our business is a breath of fresh air; it is something that has been lacking in the industry until now. We have built a great business at Calton and I am as excited as ever about what this partnership means for the next period of our growth.”

Saltus employs more than 200 people and manages client assets of more than £3 billion.