2plan shock at Park Row transfer talks collapse

National IFA 2plan Wealth Management this afternoon expressed its “surprise” after learning talks over the transfer of 240 IFAs from Park Row had collapsed.

The company says, as far as it was aware, negotiation between the firms were "working well", adding it was even set to sign legal agreements at 1pm this afternoon.

In a statement, 2plan chief executive Chris Smallwood says he suspects a board meeting at Royal Liver, which wants to offload the loss-making Park Row, may be behind the breakdown in talks.

A Park Row statement issued earlier today said talks with 2plan had ended due to a failure to reach "satisfactory terms". The FSA was set to sanction the transfer.

"We are clearly rather disappointed and surprised to read the press statement which Park Row issued early this afternoon," Smallwood says.

"We have been in exclusive talks with them over the past few weeks and had always believed that both parties were working well together with the same level of integrity and honesty.

"Last night a conference call between both parties confirmed that an agreement had been reached which we were all happy with and indeed we were due to sign legal agreements at just after 1pm today.

"Sadly however, we then saw press statements, issued without our knowledge, saying that the deal had collapsed. We believe this may have happened following a board meeting held by Royal Liver this morning, but have not had any confirmation on this."