Think Twice Before Joining a Consolidator
Unpacking the Hidden Realities Behind the Promises
In the last six months, I’ve spoken to dozens of experienced Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) who’ve joined consolidators, many with high hopes. The promise? A streamlined back office, better tech, paraplanning support, less paperwork, and more time with clients. The reality for many? Bureaucracy, pressure, and a painful erosion of independence.
The financial advice market is undergoing rapid change. Consolidation continues at a rapid pace, with hundreds of advice firms acquired across the UK in the past year alone. What I’m hearing, though, is a growing undercurrent of frustration. Support services are stretched. The tech often doesn’t work as sold. And advisers are feeling more like employees than partners, trapped in the very operational grind they were promised would disappear.
What’s more, recent reporting in Citywire highlights how many consolidators are now saddled with enormous debt burdens — collectively exceeding £3.4 billion — and are under pressure from private equity backers to deliver quick returns. Integration timelines are lengthening too, now averaging 380 days in 2025 compared to just 246 days in 2023. That means advisers are waiting longer for systems, compliance, and promised support to be fully in place, adding further pressure to already stretched teams.
Additional Financial Times reporting echoes these concerns, noting that some consolidators — including those backed by private equity — are carrying billions in leveraged debt, with one firm alone reportedly taking on around £1 billion. The pressure to generate rapid returns has led to aggressive cost-cutting and stretched integration processes. Another FT analysis described how smaller wealth firms are increasingly 'on borrowed time' in this environment, vulnerable to diluted valuations, reduced autonomy, and shrinking influence once absorbed into debt-heavy roll-ups.
But beyond the admin chaos, there's something even more concerning. If I had a pound for every adviser who told me, “They changed the deal after the first payout,” I’d be a millionaire. I’ve spoken to countless IFAs who were initially promised attractive multiples and smooth earn-outs, only to find the terms shifting months in. Clawbacks quietly rewritten. Performance hurdles moved. Autonomy chipped away post-signature.
One adviser told me a consolidator acquired his book, paid him the initial 50% tranche, and then invoked a small clause that excluded clients taken on before a certain year — a detail he had dismissed as irrelevant. The result? He lost his role (having become an employee) and now faces walking away from his book entirely. In my view, that’s unreasonable and unacceptable.
The truth is, too many advisers go into these deals dazzled by headline figures. They’re often blinded — not entirely through fault of their own — by seemingly attractive multiples for their books. But if you’re not reading the fine print — and if you don’t understand who’s pulling the strings — you could be walking into a trap. A great multiple means nothing if the rules change after the first cheque clears.
At James & Partners, we sit down with IFAs to cut through the noise. We look at the deal structure, the culture, the control dynamics, and what the day-to-day will look like. Whether you're exploring your options or already mid-process, it pays to have someone in your corner who knows the questions to ask.
Bottom line: if you're giving up control, make sure you're getting more than just a multiple in return.
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