Goodbody Stockbrokers is circling BCP Asset Management, a Dublin-based firm that was put on the market late last year and is said to be worth between €12 million and €14 million, according to sources.
Irish Life is also among parties running the rule over BCP, according to sources. Bids are due imminently, they said. However, Goodbody is being tipped as the leading contender by people familiar with the process.
BCP, which was set up in 1968, appointed KPMG late last year to advise on strategic options, after it had received a number of unsolicited approaches from wealth managers.
Clients of BCP, which is majority owned by founder David Cullen, have about €3 billion invested in products distributed by the firm. The business has specialised in more recent decades in distributing structured investment products which offer capital protection for clients as they commit money to work in the likes of equities and bonds.
Sources familiar with the process say the nature of the business means it is more heavily geared towards commissions than recurring fees.
Spokesmen for BCP, Goodbody and Irish Life declined to comment. Davy was also speculated to be interested in the company. However, sources said on Friday it is not in the running.
BCP’s revenues increased by 15 per cent to €7.05 million in 2023, according to its latest set of accounts filed with the Companies Registration Office. KPMG is understood to have advised potential bidders that the firm could see its revenue increasing from €8 million last year to €12 million over the medium term.
The company swung into a pretax profit of €925,783 in 2023 from a loss of €540,616 posted in the previous year.
BCP is run by chief executive David Calvert, a former Dublin footballer.
BCP beefed up its board in September last year buy appointing Aidan Williams, chairman of the National Asset Management Agency, and Mary Brennan, a former internal auditor at pharma group Elan and seasoned non-executive director.
Goodbody was acquired by AIB in late 2021 in a deal worth €138 million. The firm’s chief executive, Martin Tormey, told The Irish Times in an interview last October that he wanted to grow the company’s asset and wealth-management businesses further.
Larger rival Davy stole a march against Goodbody in the past dozen years snapping assets amid consolidation in this space.
Davy bought the asset-management arm of Bloxham in May 2012 when the country’s then oldest broker cratered under the weight of an accounting scandal – having agreed months earlier to buy the firm’s private clients business. A raft of subsequent Davy purchases included what was once AIB Investment Managers, the Irish arm of UK asset manager Sarasin and Danske Bank’s wealth unit in Northern Ireland.
Goodbody’s asset-management business had €2.5 billion under management as of late last year, including an AIB equity capital business that was moved across last year. Adding in wealth-management assets under management brought the total to about €15.5 billion.
Irish Life has also been highly acquisitive on this front in the past four years, and moved in 2023 to spin a number of the acquired companies, including Harvest Financial Services, Invesco, Acumen & Trust and APT financial advice, into a separate wealth management and financial planning business called Unio.
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