With an agreement in place for Kingswood’s private equity backer, HSQ Investments, to take over the company due to its debt levels, questions are being reignited about the risks in the adviser consolidator model — particularly those backed by private equity.
HSQ first invested in Kingswood in 2019, providing up to £80mn in growth equity to support the firm’s ambition of becoming “the leading UK advice-led wealth management consolidator”.
Since then, Kingswood has made 19 acquisitions, funded through HSQ’s equity and debt from a major asset manager. By June 2024, Kingswood’s assets under advice and management had grown to £12.9bn (up from £2.5bn in 2019), with revenues rising from £10.1mn to £86.2mn
