Shareholders in Retirement Income Group (RIG) have agreed to raise up to $20 million so the firm can buy Britannia’s superannuation business.

 Enticingly, Lifetime Founder and Chief Executive Ralph Stewart has indicated a new equity  interest in the business of up to $10million might be possible.  

Assuming this deal happens the new capital will be used to repay debt and create liquidity for existing shareholders. 

Stewart says the Britannia purchase provides a material increase in Lifetime’s scale, which will support the continued expansion of the business into the industy’s faster growing sector - retirement income.

The transaction will see Lifetime group FUM in increase by about $800 million to $2.1 billion.

David Milner and Alun Rees-Williams are the two major shareholders in Britannia with equal stakes totalling about 95% of the company with Gavin Dixon holding the remainder.

The companies have already entered into an agreement to sell the Brittania superannuation funds to Lifetime. The deal does not include the Brittania financial planning business.

Stewart says “Brittannia’s customer base is highly complementary to Lifetime’s existing clients, with similar demographics and product structures, allowing us to leverage our existing operating platform with limited incremental complexity.”

“The proposed acquisition will accelerate RIG’s strategy of building a scale specialist retirement-income and investment business,” he says.