Lighthouse sells pension admin arm to Mattioli Woods
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Lighthouse has sold its pension administration business, City Pensions/City Trustees, to Mattioli Woods for £1.85m.
City Pensions/City Trustees currently administers 965 Sipps, 123 SSASs and 14 funded unapproved retirement benefit schemes with total assets of £300m.
It was acquired by Lighthouse as part of its acquisition of Carrwood Barker Holdings for £2.7m in December 2005.. It generated a loss before tax of £56,000 for the year ended December 31, 2009.
Lighthouse says the sale represents a profit of £1.2m which will be added to its cash reserves. It reported cash reserves of £13.4m for the year ended 2009.
All staff from City Pensions/City Trustees will be retained and will continue to be based in London.
Lighthouse executive chairman David Hickey says: “Despite trading steadily, these operations were sub-scale in our hands, and when approached by Mattioli Woods, we felt it appropriate to facilitate a transfer to a noted pensions specialist.
“In addition to realising significant value for Lighthouse, we are also pleased to see that this transaction will safeguard the future interests of the clients and staff associated with the business. We see the Mattioli Woods’ client proposition as complementary both to the assets being transferred and to the needs of our clients requiring bespoke pension administration services. This transaction makes possible the development of a closer, ongoing relationship with Mattioli Woods.”
Mattioli Woods executive chairman Bob Woods says: “In addition to increasing the scale of our core Sipp and SSAS operations, the acquisition brings the opportunity to expand our range of services through the development of a separately branded administration proposition.
“I am delighted these services will be promoted as part of Lighthouse’s Strategic Partnership Programme over the next 18 months.”
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Readers' comments (1)
Julian Stevens | 10 Aug 2010 11:24 am
I expect Lighthouse are glad to be shot of it. If the new government would get on with the simplification it promised in the run up to the election, the overhead of administering all sorts of pension schemes could become vastly less in a very short space of time, quite apart from increasing consumer confidence. Not much chance of that, though, for as long as Mark Hoban remains involved.
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