Interactive Investor to buy the Share Centre

SnowMan

Announced this morning.

Info on Interactive website is here

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/interactive-investor-agrees-terms-acquire-share-centre-ii510579

There are a number of news items about this also if you do a search

masonic

Their aggressive campaign of acquisitions seems to at last be bearing fruit, with the group making a profit for the first time for many years according to their accounts for the year to the end of 2018.

gainst_all_disaster

Now they just need to persuade Lloyds Bank to sell them Halifax Share Dealing, and they'd be the last fixed-price platform standing. And then watch that "fixed" price rise and rise

EdSwippet

Thanks for noting this. I'm not sure if it's a positive, or not.

On the plus side, Interactive Investor has a strong commitment to flat-fee charging, and this acquisition may strengthen them. On the minus side, with Alliance Trust Savings also now absorbed by them, this further reduces the number of flat-fee platforms, already a minority even before this.

Thrugelmir

gainst_all_disaster said:

Now they just need to persuade Lloyds Bank to sell them Halifax Share Dealing, and they'd be the last fixed-price platform standing. And then watch that "fixed" price rise and rise

X-o offer fixed price trading at £5.95. 

gainst_all_disaster

Thrugelmir said:

gainst_all_disaster said:

Now they just need to persuade Lloyds Bank to sell them Halifax Share Dealing, and they'd be the last fixed-price platform standing. And then watch that "fixed" price rise and rise

X-o offer fixed price trading at £5.95. 

But you can't hold open-ended funds with them? It's the number of fixed-price full platforms (i.e. platforms which carry both open-ended funds and exchange-traded investments) which is dwindling.

There are rather more fixed-priced offerings if you are prepared to restrict yourself to exchange-traded investments. Either with providers who only carry those exchange-traded investments (e.g. X-o), or with providers who carry both funds and exchanged-traded but are cheaper if you choose to stick to exchange-traded (e.g. HL or AJB).

MarkCarnage

Inevitable consolidation continues. Is it a good or a bad thing? Bit of both maybe. 
It's in everyone's interests that the companies operating in this space are financially strong and profitable, and consolidation = economies of scale so should assist with this, and in theory might mean that customer costs don't rise either....in theory as I say. 
It will be interesting to see how the integration works and whether customers' experience of this is good. Also be interesting what response from the other bigger players might be. 

ColdIron

Not so good for the employees, expectation is that all 250 staff will be redundant by the end of the year

Thrugelmir

ColdIron said:

Not so good for the employees, expectation is that all 250 staff will be redundant by the end of the year

275,000 additional customers is going to increase the workload. 

Thrugelmir

MarkCarnage said:

Inevitable consolidation continues. Is it a good or a bad thing? Bit of both maybe. 

Fewer IPO's , declining number of listed companies, declining numbers of open ended funds. Tougher regulatory standards plus investment in technology that all needs to be paid for. 

ColdIron

Thrugelmir said:

ColdIron said:

Not so good for the employees, expectation is that all 250 staff will be redundant by the end of the year

275,000 additional customers is going to increase the workload. 

But not for the people in Aylesbury. I have a friend who works there in IT and after a morning of meetings it's all doom and gloom