Herbert Smith and Pinsents guide wealth advisers through partnership merger
Herbert Smith and Pinsent Masons have taken lead roles advising on the combination of West End financial advisers James Hambro & Partners and Calkin Pattinson, a merger that sees the latter consumed into Hambro’s partnership.
The tie-up between private asset manager Hambro, a nine-partner LLP, and 40-employee limited company Calkin Pattinson, a financial advisory company, sees the pair join forces to create a combined entity with a total portfolio of more than £1bn under management.
Calkin Pattinson chairman and CEO Charles Calkin and managing director Paul Calkin join Hambro as partners as part of the deal.
Pinsent Masons advised Calkin Pattinson after a referral from the client’s corporate finance adviser, fielding corporate partner Andrew Kerr as the lead. He was assisted by corporate associates Adrienne Murdoch and James Foster, tax partner John Christian and tax assistant solicitor Richard Fullilove.
Herbert Smith corporate partner Mark Geday led the advice to Hambro alongside corporate associates Bridget Castle and Matthew Brewer.
Hambro also hired Farrer & Co to advise on matters specific to LLP law, with the firm’s team led by partnership specialist and partner Jonathan Haley, with further advice from associate Patrick Tolhurst.
Hambro is an asset management company that spun out of JO Hambro Capital Management in 2009, managing portfolios for around 100 families, charities and trusts totalling £480m assets under management and administration.
Calkin Pattinson, founded in 1964, advises 2,000 private clients and charities, with around £600m assets under management.
The companies held merger discussions for roughly six months resulting in a proposed arrangement under which Calkin Pattinson clients’ agreements with the adviser will be assigned to a newly-created subsidiary of Hambro called James Hambro & Company Limited.
The merger comes ahead of the enforcement of the retail distribution review, the FSA’s new regulatory regime for advisers set to come into play at the start of 2013.
Background to this deal:
Pinsents won the mandate for Calkin Pattinson followed a referral from Hines Associates, which provided corporate finance advice to the company on the deal. The introduction came after Pinsents’ Kerr had advised clients together with Hines on deals including stockbrokers Charles Stanley Group’s £8m acquisition of financial intermediary Garrison Investment Analysis in 2007. Hines and Kerr both advised Garrison.
Farrers, meanwhile, is a frequent adviser to Hambro on partnership law. The deals comes roughly a year after Farrers’ Haley advised individual partners of King Sturge, a UK LLP, on its much larger merger with property giant Jones Lang LaSalle last year (6 June 2011).
