ATS clients have exchanged a number of hands over the years. Originally, the accounts were sold to Interactive Investor for £40m in 2018. This saw existing direct-to-consumer accounts moved to the II platform, whilst advised clients were left on the old ATS platform.
II then sold the advised clients book to Embark in 2019, which led to a migration to Embark completed in February 2021.
In July last year, Lloyds announced its £390m takeover of Embark, which Whiting highlighted as “even more change” for original clients of ATS.
Embark expressed its intention to move ATS clients away from the flat fee model back in October 2019, arguing it was a “regressive” structure for investors with less than half a billion pounds and “made ATS very uncompetitive as a business”.
Phil Smith, Embark’s group CEO, said at the time: "We see [the cap] lasting for the foreseeable future because we want to be fair to their customers. Quite what will happen over the next 10 years I can't say.”
An Embark spokesperson said the new structure was a "competitively priced basis-point model", in line with its standard approach and that of other platforms.
They added: "Both advisers and customers have been notified and provided with access to independently sourced price comparison data. This will ensure we can continue to provide our customers with market-leading platform services.”
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
