Harwood Wealth Management to raise £10m to fund acquisitions

Shares in Harwood Wealth Management tumbled on Wednesday ahead of the company’s equity placing to raise about £10m to fund potential acquisitions as part of its growth strategy.

The AIM-listed financial planning and wealth management group is planning to raise funds from an accelerated bookbuild of shares of 150p each.

If there is sufficient demand, joint chief executive Neil Dunkley, his wife Sian Dunkley, and chief commercial officer Mark Howard have agreed to sell up to 1.33m shares owned by them at 150p each to raise £2m.

The placing is subject to shareholder approval at the next meeting on 18 April and then the new shares will be admitted to trade on AIM the following day.

Harwood will use the equity raised to pursue its growth strategy through acquisitions and build on the 17 acquisitions it made in the 2016 financial year for a collected £11.6m.

Its assets under Influence increased 75% in that period to £2.06bn and assets under management grew to £693m from £276m.

The company has agreed to buy six acquisitions for £3.1m which would add about £156m of assets under administration. It also has nine further acquisitions in the pipeline worth £14.95m, which would add about £960m of assets under administration.

Shares in Harwood Wealth Management were down 20.98% to 171.87p at 0926 BST.