Auction for £27 billion wealth manager W1M reaches second round
Key Facts
The auction of British wealth manager W1M has reached its second round, with interest from Bridgepoint, Bain Capital and Aquiline, according to Investing, citing Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter. The sale process follows the company's expansion through its acquisition of Vermeer Partners, which lifted assets under management to about £27 billion, according to its announcement of the deal's completion. Sources cited in the report estimated the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation at about £70 million. The report said Ares, the company's existing lender, had provided a financing package tied to the sale and available to prospective buyers. At its current stage, the auction therefore includes private equity firms interested in buying the company and financing made available by its existing lender to potential acquirers, according to the report carried from Bloomberg.
W1M traces its origins to the merger of London & Capital and Waverton Investment Management in July 2024, according to the company's account of the combined entity's formation. The merger announcement issued by Lovell Minnick Partners stated that the investment firm would hold a majority stake in the combined business. Following the merger, London & Capital and Waverton formally began operating as W1M on 2 June 2025, according to the announcement launching the unified brand. The company said in that statement that assets under management exceeded £21 billion when it began operating under the new name. The brand launch brought the two merged companies' businesses under a single identity, after the deal announcement had set out the combined entity's ownership structure and majority stake.
The company continued its expansion by buying Vermeer Partners and announced completion of the acquisition after receiving approval from Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, the regulatory clearance that preceded the deal's closing. Vermeer managed more than £2 billion in assets when the purchase agreement was announced, according to W1M's statement on the agreement. In the comparison provided by the company at completion, its assets under management stood at £18 billion in June 2024, before reaching the level announced following the acquisition. When it announced the agreement to buy Vermeer, the company attributed its growth to strong investment performance and net new asset growth of 7.5% during the year preceding the announcement. The company's description of its business growth thus rested on investment performance and new assets, alongside the expansion of its asset base through the acquisition of another investment manager.
W1M linked its purchase of Vermeer to its ambition to expand its wealth management business, saying the acquisition supported "building scale in an increasingly consolidating market". The company describes its integrated model as bringing wealth advice, investment management and reporting under one roof. In another example of deals in the British sector, NatWest Group acquired all of Evelyn Partners' issued shares on 30 June 2026, according to the group's results. The enterprise value used in the Evelyn deal was about £2.7 billion, according to the same NatWest disclosure. That transaction involved the acquisition of a 100% stake in Evelyn, part of merger activity that also included W1M's purchase of Vermeer.
On arrangements for W1M's sale, Rothschild is acting as adviser to the seller, according to the sources cited in the report carried from Bloomberg. Rothschild has previously worked on the company's transactions, having advised London & Capital Group on its merger with Waverton, according to Lovell Minnick Partners' announcement of that transaction. Bain Capital, which the report named among interested buyers, announced an agreement to buy Perpetual Wealth Management in another wealth management deal. Perpetual had about A$21.9 billion in funds under advice as of 31 December 2025, according to Bain Capital's acquisition statement. That figure relates to the financial advice business targeted in the Australian transaction, which Bain Capital said offered opportunities to expand its role in consolidating firms in the sector.
Charles Lawson, a partner at Bain Capital, said in the Perpetual deal statement that the firm saw "opportunities to help drive consolidation" in Australia's financial advice sector. His remarks identified Perpetual Wealth Management as a platform to help consolidate that sector, as part of the background to the announced acquisition of the business. Regarding the next step in that transaction, Bain Capital said the current intention was to complete the sale around the end of the calendar year 2026. The target date remains subject to approvals from the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, according to the company's statement. Those approvals relate to completion of the Perpetual acquisition as part of Bain Capital's announced expansion in Australian wealth management.