A buyer's first year with your clients

The sale agreement is signed, the first payment arrives, and the work of joining your firm to the buyer's begins. The buyer's integration team decides how your clients experience that first year, and in a deal with deferred payments it also decides how much of the rest of the price you receive.

What an integration team does

The detail varies by buyer. The tasks are similar from one to the next.

Data

Client records move from your back-office system into the buyer's. Fields are mapped, notes are carried across or archived, and gaps are found.

Platforms and agencies

Client accounts on each platform are moved to the buyer's agency, and fee instructions are re-pointed.

Investment approach

Clients may be moved onto the buyer's own portfolios or platform. Each move is a piece of advice and needs a suitability report.

Service and fees

Clients may be asked to sign the buyer's client agreement and move to its fee scale.

Staff

Your team learns the buyer's systems and processes, and roles may change.

Letters

Clients receive letters about each of the above, often several in the same year.

Where clients leave

Clients leave at points of change: a letter from a firm they do not know, a request for a new signature, a change of platform, a change of fee, a new name on the review invitation. Each one is a moment where a client considers whether to stay.

When the price includes a deferred payment tied to client retention, the buyer's integration choices affect what you receive. A buyer who moves every client onto a new platform in the first six months creates more of those moments than one who moves them gradually at their annual reviews.

The letters your clients receive

Every letter a client receives in the first year affects whether they stay. Ask to see and approve the wording of the letters that go to your clients, at least for the first few months. Check that each one names somebody the client knows, says what changes and what does not, and gives a telephone number that will be answered by somebody who knows the client's situation.

Your role after completion

A sale agreement can require the seller to stay for a period after completion: to introduce clients, to advise while the new adviser takes over, or to be available for questions. Ask what the buyer expects of you during that time, how many days a week, for how long, and on what pay. Ask what decisions you will still be able to make. If you stay on after a sale, expect that decisions about clients they have advised for years are now made by somebody else.

Your staff in the first year

Your team carries most of the integration work: moving data, explaining changes to clients and learning new systems while still doing their own jobs. Ask the buyer what support they will get, who they will report to, and whether their roles will change. Ask whether any roles are expected to go. Your staff will ask you, and you need to be able to answer.

Questions to ask before you sign

Will my clients be moved to a different platform or investment approach, and if so, when?
Will their fees change, and how will that be explained to them?
How many letters will my clients receive in the first year, and can I see drafts?
Who will each client's adviser be, and when will they meet?
If retention falls because of a decision the buyer makes, how is that treated in the deferred payment?
What happens to each member of my team?

Ask to speak to a principal who sold to the same buyer two or three years ago, and ask what the first year was like for their clients.

How Securo orders it

Under Securo much of that integration happens at the start, while you are still advising. Compliance, paraplanning, administration and the systems behind them move to Equity & General when you join, and clients see no change in who advises them. The handover to the next adviser comes after that, in meetings, over about a year. By the time of the exit, the clients already know the firm and the adviser they are staying with.

How Securo runs, stage by stage