Fund data and technology company FE fundinfo has acquired cashflow planning provider CashCalc, adding the cashflow planning capability to its suite of tools.
FE fundinfo said the acquisition reflected its ‘Better Connected, Better Informed’ ethos as the combination of CashCalc, FE Analytics and FE Investments would enable ‘a more seamless customer journey, leading to better advice outcomes for advisers and their clients’.
CashCalc was founded in 2014 and will continue to be offered as stand-alone product.
Following the acquisition, FE fundinfo will be investing significantly in the integration between these extended sets of tools, including platform and back-office integrations.
Talking about the acquisition, Ray Adams, director and founder of CashCalc, said: “Cashflow planning is a key component of an adviser’s process and, perhaps even more so during the course of the pandemic, it became an essential service for many advice businesses, as they sought to help their clients throughout the market volatility by providing digital services and sound financial planning advice.
“Within the market, our cashflow planning services are widely recognised as being engaging, and uncomplicated and have become the central hub of the financial planning process for thousands of advisers. By aligning our services with FE fundinfo’s own market-leading investment tools, such as FE Analytics, we will be able to support our clients by offering a more complete journey and a seamless process.”
Hamish Purdey, chief executive at FE fundinfo, added that cashflow planning having grown in prominence across the industry in recent years and now formed a vital component of the investment process.
“It is our mission at FE fundinfo to connect the investment industry and make it as simple as possible for our clients to be better informed on investments. Helping financial advisers run their investment propositions and provide first class financial advice through cash flow planning that is intrinsically linked to the investment solution is an essential part of that.
“We have been extremely impressed with CashCalc’s client-centric approach that matches our own, and its value to the industry at large. Integrating CashCalc’s market-leading services with our own award-winning tools marks a natural product extension and will lead to better advice outcomes for advisers and their clients.”
Advising on the deal were Lexington Corporate Finance and law firm HCR for CashCalc and Burness Paull and Deloitte for FE fundinfo.
Commenting on the acquisition, Ian McKenna, Founder and Director of FTRC said: “Cashcalc has built a great reputation with paraplanners in recent years as a simple, flexible tool which offers really clear outputs. FE Analytics has long been one of the market leaders in providing investment research. These two systems are entirely complementary and bringing both together should produce an offering that is significantly more than the sum of the parts.”
Research company NextWealth in its most recent Adviser Tech Stack Report (October 2020), reported on Cashcalc as follows:
· CashCalc is the standout winner in this report in terms of gains in both users and rising scores in reviews.
CashCalc added 9% to its market share to take it to 45% among advisers using cashflow modelling tools.
· CashCalc’s user review scores improved in all four criteria while Voyant’s declined comparing results from March 2020 to October 2020.
· CashCalc was built by advisers for advisers and has a strong following. Recent developments to include tax liabilities addressed the one big concern advisers had with the system. It is also valued for being client-friendly.
· CashCalc made a strong entrance into the client portal category – capturing 13% of adviser users of client portals and scoring a perfect 5 on value for money and an overall score of 4.88 out of 5.
