IMAS acted as the exclusive financial adviser to Mobius Life on its agreed sale by Souter Investments and Manfield Partners to Phoenix Equity Partners and the management team, led by CEO Adrian Swales. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority.

Mobius Life is a fast-growing, specialist provider of investment administration services to UK defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes via a life insurance structure. With its technology platform solution, the company helps scheme trustees and the consultants that advise them to select and acquire, manage, value and trade a wide range of assets efficiently and accurately, enabling them to better implement their investment strategies and meet their investment objectives.

Phoenix Equity Partners is a leading growth-focused private equity firm which specialises in investments in medium-sized, UK-based businesses valued up to £200m, working closely with entrepreneurs and management teams to help them grow their businesses. Souter Investments is one of the UK’s leading family investment offices specialising in private equity.

Mobius Life has grown assets under administration on its platform five-fold to c. £17bn over the last five years through its differentiated service offering and focused sales efforts. The investment by Phoenix Equity Partners will support the management and staff, all of whom will remain in Mobius Life and many of whom are shareholders of the company, to drive its continued expansion and help boost further growth in its assets under administration.

IMAS provided advice to Mobius Life throughout the entire project, as well as the prior disposal of the company’s non-core assets. From having first introduced Phoenix Equity Partners to the company, IMAS advised Mobius Life on all their interaction with them, including the information flow, due diligence and detailed negotiations through to the ultimate agreement of the terms of the transaction.

Adrian Swales, CEO of Mobius Life, commented: “We are grateful to Souter for their support in helping us develop a robust and scalable platform solution that offers our pension scheme customers and their advisers clear benefits and the best outcomes. The investment by Phoenix sets us up for our next exciting phase of growth and demonstrates confidence in our business, senior management and wider team to continue our track record of outstanding performance. We are delighted to have Phoenix on board.”

Sandy Muirhead, Phoenix Equity Partners, said: “We are extremely excited at the prospect of working with Adrian and Mobius Life’s management team to take the business on to the next stage of its growth. Mobius Life has built an outstanding and unique position in the pensions market and, with the investment that we intend to make in its operational and distribution infrastructure, we see a clear opportunity for Mobius Life to increase its penetration of the institutional pension market and broaden its product offering while maintaining its best in class service levels.”

Andy Macfie, Managing Director at Souter, said: “Adrian and his team at Mobius Life have built a strong, market-leading business and a first-class, efficient and flexible independent platform for institutional corporate pension schemes. The strong growth in Mobius Life’s assets under administration and the widening range of clients Mobius Life serves underlines the attraction of the company’s wide range of investment services and tailored investment solutions. We wish Adrian and his team every success in the future.”