Independent financial adviser (IFA) Lowes Financial Management is in talks with the founders of struggling UK investment platform Structured Products GO (SPGO) to acquire the intellectual property behind the failed business.
"We are interested in acquiring the intellectual property and the name in order to continue a service for existing clients of the platform," Lowes managing director Ian Lowes (pictured) told SRP. "What we are buying is the software code that goes with the system with the aim of integrating it with the SPwrap platform code."
The platform was launched in September 2011 to provide access to search and comparison tools. It was a single source for price feeds, marketing material, tutorials and structured product-specific analytics, aimed at assisting with due diligence, performance monitoring tools, market and limit order systems. The platform ceased trading in August.
Lowes there that there are a number of tools within SPGO platform such as the secondary market capabilities and self-invested personal pension solutions that may be useful to users of its recently launched SPwrap platform.
"Whichever elements we decide to keep will be fully integrated with those offered by SPwrap," he said. "By acquiring the IFA client list that supported the platform, we will be able to continue servicing those clients."
Lowes said that he expects to reach an agreement with the owners of the platform before the end of the year, but declined to disclose any figures relating to clients, assets under management or the value of the deal.
Following a joint-venture agreement with Meteor Asset Management in May, Lowes soft-launched the structured product platform, SPwrap.com, in October. The Newcastle-based IFA also owns a structured products comparison site aimed at financial advisers, structuredproductreview.com.
The SPGO venture was launched by former Barclays structured product executive Phil Taylor and Royal Bank of Scotland's vice-president of structured products for the UK, Ben Murison. The platform was administered by WH Ireland which had regulatory permission to adopt the platform's 'trading style.'
Calls to Murison were not returned by press time and Taylor could not be reached for comment.