W1M sale reaches second round, with Bridgepoint, Bain Capital and Aquiline among bidders

On 21 October 2026, Bloomberg reported that the sale of W1M, the London wealth and investment manager, had moved to a second bidding round. Citing people with knowledge of the matter, it named Bridgepoint, Bain Capital and Aquiline among the private equity firms interested in buying the business. None of the parties has confirmed the process: Ares, Aquiline, Bain Capital, Bridgepoint and W1M declined to comment, according to Private Banker International, which followed up the report the next day.

What has been reported

All of the detail on the auction comes from Bloomberg’s sources and has not been published by the companies. According to that reporting, Rothschild is advising W1M on the sale, and the firm generates EBITDA of around £70 million. Ares, W1M’s existing lender, has offered staple financing, and several private credit firms are said to be interested in funding a deal. No price or timetable has been reported.

The firm being sold

The background is on the record. W1M was formed by the merger of Waverton Investment Management and London & Capital in July 2024, and adopted its current name in 2025. At the time of the rebrand, the combined firm said it had passed £21 billion of assets under management and employed more than 300 people, with offices in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Barcelona and Barbados, according to the announcement published by its owner, Lovell Minnick. The US private equity firm invested in the business in 2023. W1M describes its client base as high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families, charities and institutions, and it is regulated by the FCA, the US SEC and Spain’s CNMV.

In January 2026, W1M agreed to buy Vermeer Partners, a London wealth manager with more than £2 billion under management. In its own release, the firm said it was approaching £25 billion in assets, up from £18 billion in June 2024, and reported net new asset growth of 7.5% over the previous year. Its chief executive, Guy McGlashan, said the firm needed scale to “grow and compete effectively in a consolidating market”.

A busy year for UK wealth deals

The auction follows NatWest’s £2.7 billion purchase of Evelyn Partners from funds managed by Permira, Warburg Pincus and others, which completed on 30 June, and Corient’s acquisitions of Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital earlier in the summer. Both deals put a large UK private client business under a new owner. If W1M goes to one of the reported bidders, it would pass from one private equity owner to another.

What it means for families and their advisers

A change of owner does not alter a client’s contract on day one, but a new sponsor usually arrives with its own plan for growth, costs and acquisitions, and a staple financing package indicates that the seller expects a debt-funded deal. Families with assets at W1M, and the family offices that monitor their managers, can reasonably ask how investment and client teams will be retained, whether fees or the product range are expected to change, and how the firm’s cross-border and SEC-regulated services fit the new owner’s plans. Those questions are worth putting to any UK manager now in a sale process.

Sources: Bloomberg (21 October 2026); Private Banker International (22 October 2026); Lovell Minnick (25 March 2025); W1M (12 January 2026); Professional Adviser (July 2026).