St James’s Place walks away from deal to buy Dublin firm Harvest
A DEAL by British wealth management company St James’s Place to acquire Dublin-based financial advisory firm Harvest Financial Services has fallen through.
In a statement to the Sunday Independent, St James’s Place (SJP) confirmed it was not going ahead with a deal announced last February.
“Following careful consideration, St James’s Place has decided not to proceed with the acquisition of Harvest Financial Services Limited,” said a spokesman. “This reflects a strategic decision regarding this opportunity by St James’s Place and does not reflect in any way upon Harvest Financial Services.
“St James’s Place looks forward to maintaining the good relationships it has established with Harvest.”
The deal was subject to approval by the Central Bank and it is not clear if this had been granted.
SJP declined to elaborate or answer specific queries, while Harvest did not respond to queries.
The two parties had been in talks for around two years before announcing the acquisition, which was valued at under £10m (€11.7m).
At the time of the announcement, Jonathan McMahon, executive director at SJP, said the acquisition “supports St James’s Place Group’s strategic growth plans of continuing to invest and extend Rowan Dartington’s (a wealth manager owned by St James’s Place) proven discretionary fund management capabilities.”
“As a marketplace, Ireland shares many of the same characteristics as the UK, while Harvest has an established track record of providing high-quality financial and investment advice and pension services to clients there,” added the 2019 statement.
“The firm shares many of our values and we look forward to working closely together to provide leading investment management services to Irish clients, helping them to achieve their financial objectives.”
At the time of the deal, Harvest executive, Gerry Devitt, said the company was “extremely excited” at bringing SJP’s products to the market. The company was founded in 1993.
Last October, when announcing that McMahon was leaving the business, the company said he would “continue to support the integration of Dublin-based financial advice firm Harvest Financial Services as chairman, following its acquisition by SJP in February”.
However, as confirmed on Friday to the Sunday Independent, the deal unravelled.
Prior to beginning talks with SJP in 2017, Harvest had been in advanced talks with Cantor Fitzgerald, while Davy and Investec are also believed to have looked at the boutique firm.