Press Releases

International Money Marketing
September 2004
IFA's UK Parent Group Finalises Merger with Millfield

Inter-Alliance International's parent company is to merge with one of the largest IFA firms in the UK, Millfield Group. The merged company will adopt the Millfield name and will have around 1,850 advisers in the UK. Both companies are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The merger offer is being made on the basis of five new Millfield shares for every 236 Inter-Alliance shares. This values each Inter-Alliance share at 1.25 pence and the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Inter-Alliance at £11.35m.

It is uncertain what the implications are for IAI, although Brian Cosgrave, CEO of IAl, had a meeting with Inter-Alliance chairman Keith Carby shortly before the announcement was made.

Millfield has already had one unsuc­cessful attempt at entering the offshore market in 2002, when it established a pri­vate client operation in Guernsey. But after recruiting 11 private client man­agers, Millfield withdrew from the market in September 2003.

"Over the past year, we have realised that we can serve expatriates as easily from the UK when they return home intermittently as we can through private client managers around the world," said Brian Beeston, Millfield's Business Devel­opment Manager, in September 2003.

Over the past two years, Cosgrave has made IAI profitable and increased turnover by 111 per cent in the first five months of this year compared with the same period in 2003.

Between January and the end of May, the network Inter-Alliance WorldNet enjoyed an increase in turnover of 407 per cent. It now accounts for 53 per cent of the IAl Group's revenues, compared with 25 per cent in the first half of 2003. IAl's subsidiary firms saw turnover rise by 36 per cent in the first five months of this year.