Sanlam Private Wealth (SPW), a Financial Planning firm, with offices in North Wales, Bristol, Wiltshire and London, has acquired the client bank of wealth manager, London Asset Management, for an undisclosed sum.

London Asset Management has £44m of assets and over 1,000 clients based in London, the Home Counties and Devon.  The clients will now be advised by Sanlam’s existing Financial Planners. No principals or staff of LAM will be joining SPW. Richard Armstrong, chairman, and Gary Pulford, managing director of LAM, will pursue other business interests.

Mr Armstrong said “After much deliberation on how to ensure our clients will continue to benefit from the best advice possible, we carefully selected Sanlam Private Wealth who we believe will continue to provide a professional and personal service to our clients.

“We also feel they are well suited to cope with the ever increasing and changing financial services legislation that the industry is currently experiencing.”

Commenting on the news, Nigel Speirs, chief executive of Sanlam Private Wealth, said: “We are delighted to acquire the LAM clients and wish both Richard and Gary all the very best for the future. We are on the lookout for quality businesses like this and have been approached by a number of prospective sellers in 2011. We undertake stringent due diligence and after much consideration of a number of potential acquisitions, we decided to go for LAM. We hope to complete on further acquisitions in the very near future”