UK online financial supermarket Ample has been acquired by Carruthers Associates Limited (CAL), a buy-out vehicle headed by Tomás Carruthers, the former CEO of one-time AMP acquisition interactive investor plc.
The buy out of Ample and its 1.4 million registered users from HHG PLC, represents a remarkable turnaround for CAL CEO Carruthers. He was chief executive of ailing financial Website interactive investor when it was acquired by Australian asset manager AMP in 2001 and merged with Ample. Carruthers stayed with the business following the take-over and became a senior member of AMP's European business development team.
He has assembled a new management team to run Ample and believes the business is well-positioned to take advantage of the upturn in investment markets.
"The business is well known, has a huge user base and new capabilities to offer its customers," he says. "This is a new play on wealth management at an opportune time."
Carruthers says CAL has attracted significant institutional backing and capital to further develop the long-term future of the Ample business, which currently offers an online transaction processing engine for share trading and personal savings products such as ISAs, pension funds and investment trusts.