Appleby Fiduciary Business (AFB) has confirmed that the management buyout from the Appleby Group by private equity firm Bridgepoint completed on Thursday 31 December 2015. This means that, with immediate effect, AFB and the Appleby law firm are two independent businesses.

Farah Ballands, who will lead the AFB team as Chief Executive Officer, said: “AFB has grown significantly over the years with more than 350 staff located across nine offshore jurisdictions. With Bridgepoint’s expertise and support we look forward to building on this success and investing in new infrastructure to give our clients an unrivalled standard of service.”

“The Appleby Group has provided us with a solid foundation from which to build our new fiduciary brand, which we expect to launch in the first quarter of 2016. The team is also busy working on a number of strategic initiatives that we look forward to communicating over the next few weeks, including the appointment of our new Chairman. This is the beginning of an exciting journey for us as an independent fiduciary business.”

AFB’s Isle of Man office, located in Athol Street, Douglas, will be led by Sean Dowling. It currently employs more than 50 staff with plans for further growth over the coming months.

William Paul, partner and head of Bridgepoint’s financial services team, said: "The buyout brings significant opportunity for AFB as a standalone business to accelerate its growth organically and via acquisition, in what remains a strongly growing market."

Contact details for AFB and Appleby will remain the same.

Advisers involved in this transaction included:

• For Appleby: PWC (M&A, Commercial and Financial), Macfarlanes (Legal), Kinetic (Compliance)
• For Bridgepoint: KPMG/Wyvern Partners (Corporate Finance), Stikeman Elliott (Commercial/Regulation), KPMG (Accounting, Tax/Structuring), Intuitus (IT), Marsh (Insurance), Travers Smith (Legal)
• For Management: Liberty Corporate Finance (M&A), Dickson Minto (Legal), PwC (Tax)

Photo - Farah Ballands.