My name is Vince Lane. Before joining HFMC, I built up a firm of Chartered Financial Planners, R&S Associates Financial Planning Ltd., which we set up in 1985. 

I came to the conclusion in 2021 and 2022, post-pandemic, to sell the business to ensure continuity for the staff and for our clients.

One of the principal considerations when I decided to sell the business was the culture of the buying business, and also the way that the culture would be reflected in terms of our staff and our clients. We had built a very successful business, and the attitude we had was, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” 

I met with Phil and Ross in the early stages of negotiations, and I’d met with two other prospective buyers. I really liked the way HFMC operated. There’s complete flexibility, transparency, and everything they said in our initial meeting turned out to be 100% true; they’ve delivered on what they said they were going to do. 

I decided to choose HFMC Wealth to integrate with our business because they were highly personalised. I met with the main board, and the culture was absolutely amazing. They’ve been fantastic with our staff and with our clients, and they were committed to not disrupting the successful relationships with discretionary fund managers that we’d established over many years within our own business.

When we initially integrated the business with HFMC in January 2023, it seemed somewhat overwhelming. However, they had an integration team and an onboarding team that were excellent. They reassured our staff about the back-office systems and integrating our client base, and that let me reassure the clients that it’s business as usual, and it was a very smooth transition indeed.

During the sales process, there were one or two complications that we encountered regarding VAT and how we operated, but HFMC worked very closely with our lawyers, and every issue that we had that was a potential hurdle was very quickly and smoothly dealt with. Their lawyers were excellent in terms of having transacted many deals in the past. 

One of the biggest feelings that we share as a team, and I have personally, is that we have absolutely no regrets because we can now spend time focusing on developing and growing our business with the addition of some excellent support around compliance and regulation. We also have some excellent marketing support for developing clients and professional connections. 

One of the best things about selling the business to HFMC is that we’ve got guaranteed continuity for our staff, guaranteed continuity for our clients, and it’s reassuring that we have extra facilities in-house with HFMC, such as international tax planning. We also have learning and development sessions and adviser forums, which make sure that we’re fully up to date in terms of training and technical knowledge.

I’d certainly recommend HFMC as a prospective buyer for a business, and one of the things I would suggest is getting involved in the process sooner rather than later. It does take a little bit of time to get used to the new transition. And knowing what I know now, I perhaps would have sold the business two or three years earlier.