MANAGEMENT BUY OUT AT KEY RETIREMENT SOLUTIONS
The board of directors comprises four members of the existing management team; Colin Taylor, Managing Director, Dean Mirfin, Business Development Director, Paul Wilson, Operations Director, and Richard Overson, Sales Director who have each invested private equity in the company.
The management buy-out has been undertaken to enable Key Retirement Solutions to build on its position by pursuing ambitious growth objectives in the equity release and retirement planning sectors, independently of external ownership.
The company has developed since it was established in 1998, and currently has a turnover in excess of £5 million per annum. It transacts 20% of all (SHIP) equity release business in the UK, and also provides full financial advice in other areas specific to retired clients, including estate planning and long term care.
Over the same time period, its previous ultimate owner Countrywide PLC has increasingly focused on its estate agency and related property services businesses, and away from life assurance, culminating in a de-merger and separate listing of the two businesses Chesnara and Countrywide plc in May 2004.
Key Retirement Solutions expects strong growth in its core business markets. It recently issued a report on the equity release market which forecast that £1.58 billion is expected to be releasedthrough equity release schemes in 2004, and in total £34.5 billion could be released between 2003 and 2010. Business performance is also very strong and well ahead of business targets for the year and against the 5 year business plan.
Key Retirement Solutions currently operates via a nationwide team of 45 advisers and is currently recruiting to further support its plans for continued expansion.
Colin Taylor, managing director, Key Retirement Solutions said: "This announcement is the culmination of several years' planning and hard work and is a very exciting moment for Key Retirement Solutions. The company has a proven business model, providing the highest quality financial advice and service to its target market of retirees, and I am confident that as an independent business we will capitalise on our achievement to date and take the company successfully into its next phase of growth."
