MWA Financial (MWA) has acquired London-based Sterling Financial Consultants and Cornwall-based FAC (The Financial Advice Centre (SW) Ltd) as part of its continued ambition to build a national firm of independent financial advisers over the next three to five years.

The deals are the first to be completed by MWA since it secured substantial long-term funding from alternative finance provider ThinCats in March.

The transactions, which were completed earlier this week, bring the number of MWA acquisitions in the last two years to five and takes MWA’s assets under advice to £450m and adviser headcount above 20.

As part of the deal, Denise Wilkinson has joined MWA from Sterling Financial Consultants as a Field Compliance Officer. MWA also welcomes Andrew Harvey and Ken Cook from FAC, who both bring considerable and longstanding experience as financial advisers to their loyal client base. Andrew will spearhead MWA’s growth in the South West of England.

MWA was launched by chief executive Campbell Banks in 2016 with the ambition of recreating here in the UK the holistic advice model prevalent in his native Australia. Banks has more than 25 years’ experience developing financial advice networks in Australia for the likes of ING, AXA Asia Pacific and AMP.

Ed Rosengarten joined MWA as executive chairman in 2022 to help accelerate and execute its growth strategy. Before joining, Rosengarten was head of funds at Smith & Williamson and, prior to that, spent 20 years at M&G, the last 10 of which as chief executive of the firm’s equity business. 

The MWA group owns and operates MWA Financial Advice, which is a single integrated regulated advice business incorporating all MWA’s acquired entities. 

MWA now includes offices in Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, London, Cornwall and the Scottish Borders. 

MWA Financial chief executive Campbell Banks says: “The acquisition of Sterling and FAC is another significant milestone for MWA as we begin to make use of the funds being made available to us through our partnership with ThinCats. With a number of other live acquisitions already in play our immediate aim is to continue to increase our footprint across the UK, taking adviser numbers to over 30 and assets under administration to above £1bn.” 

MWA Financial executive chairman Ed Rosengarten says: “We have set out our stall as an acquirer and integrator of high-quality regional IFAs and the acquisitions of Sterling and FAC is another great example of that. What we have bought are first-class regional businesses with a high-quality offering and hugely impressive client list.

 “Sterling and FAC clients will continue to receive their usual high levels of service with the additional benefit of the wider range of tools and scale that being a part of MWA can offer.”

FAC’s Andrew Harvey says: “The deal with MWA does everything we were looking for in a deal and more. While our clients will continue to benefit from the first-class quality independent financial advice they have come to expect, it will also enable a number of the team to start thinking about their retirement over the next couple of years.”

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For more information contact:

Andrew Appleyard, MRM - 07909 684 468 / andrew.appleyard@mrm-london.com