The Observer
Being Consolidated? Breakaway with Financial Solutions
“Resistance is futile” *the Consolidator whispers in your ear, as the industry nears its 130th PE-backed acquisition in the last 12 months. They carry on, “You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us.”
Ok, those quotes are actually from the fictional alien collective, the Borg, a recurring antagonist in the Star Trek franchise. For the non-Trekkies, the Borg forcibly “assimilate” other species, turning individuals into members of a hive mind.
Niche sci-fi reference aside, the once alien concept of private capital and consolidation is now forcibly reshaping our industry. In the last 12 months, 40 active consolidators have assimilated over 120 firms. This happened while the number of advisers has grown by 15%, but we’ve seen a 6% decrease in the number of advice firms.
Concrete Losses & Hidden Costs of Consolidation
While there are genuine perks that come with scale; shared services, centralised resources, better buying power, there are also real costs.
Independence, that word that advisers rightfully value, is often incrementally eroded as consolidation takes hold.
Platform choice narrowing: nothing says independence like announcing a platform built for a network owned by a wealth manager, more a Vision—ary approach to distribution?
“Preferred” investment solutions: as one PE-backed firm put it, “there is no option to remain with an alternative MPS solution, as the exceptions process will not accommodate cases based on cost or performance.” Consumer Duty still applies.
Succession constraints: being part of something so independent you can’t sell your business externally. Your clients, your data, your independence *other than at sale. Having watched values discount by 45% recently.
What acquirers actually own: of 25 acquirer firms surveyed (c. 40 in the market), 84% had in-house portfolio management capabilities, 68% had fund management capabilities, 56% had platform capabilities; only 16% report defined professional-services support (e.g., compliance/admin). Translation: investment levers are centralised, but the support you need isn’t always the centre of gravity. NextWealth’s 2025 Consolidator and Aggregator report
It would be clever for us to amalgamate the words distribution and consolidator and create a portmanteau. The problem is when distribution makes up 84% of the objective you end up with…distributor.
At heart, this isn’t about “efficiency”; it’s about distribution control.
Disclosure: Financial Solutions is connected to P1 Investment Services. You can read more about the relationship here [hyperlinked to FS Page]. We’re proud of the independent advisers who make up Financial Solutions – and of our own independence.
Emotional & Strategic Toll of Consolidation
You don’t enter this profession to be consolidated or be distribution under a different guise. Post-acquisition, though, many find entrepreneurship swapped for employment: investment menus narrow, platform choices are “strongly encouraged,” new technology imposed, and strategy decisions drift to a parent office. And that tech point matters: nearly one in three advisers say full system integration alone would let them serve 20+ additional clients. Mid-career planners (5–15 years in) feel this most acutely and are the most vocal because they know what “good” looks like and still have decades to protect it.
Signals of pushback:
Compliance head explains leaving a consolidator to launch a new firm, citing misaligned targets and loss of autonomy over providers and DFM choices.
After Aviva’s takeover, more than 50 Succession advisers (about a quarter at the time) exited, many joining new firms.
Three Shackleton-acquired advisers quit for Continuum following the PE-backed deal, a classic “vote-with-your-feet” move. These aren’t isolated stories; they’re just the ones making the headlines.
Break away without breaking things
Famously *if you’re a Star Trek fan * the Borg assimilated a Captain of the Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard. But he was able to break away, regaining his individual consciousness. Importantly, he had a plan.
Breakaway isn’t rebellion; it’s stewardship, of client outcomes, of a brand you’ve built and grown. Pick a partner who respects your independence. For us independence isn’t a slogan we’ve trademarked, it’s our way of working. We’re your partner, not your parent.
If you’re ready to leave a consolidator, we’ll help you break out, cleanly, legally, profitably, and get back to building your firm.
Is it time you Boldly Go?
