How to Find the Best Investor for a Privately Owned Trust and Fiduciary Services Business
For owners of trust and fiduciary services businesses, choosing the right investor is far more important than choosing the highest headline valuation. These businesses sit at the intersection of regulation, reputation, long-term client relationships, and professional judgement. A poorly aligned investor can erode value quickly—through cultural missteps, compliance failures, or aggressive financial engineering—while the right partner can professionalise the platform, accelerate growth, and create a premium exit over time.
As an M&A adviser active across European professional services, we see a growing volume of interest in trust and fiduciary businesses from Private Equity, family offices, and strategic consolidators. Demand is real, but outcomes vary dramatically depending on investor selection and process discipline.
This article sets out a practical framework for founders, partners, and shareholders on how to identify and select the best investor for a privately owned trust and fiduciary services business—and how to avoid the most common and costly mistakes.
Why trust and fiduciary businesses attract investors
Trust and fiduciary services have become one of the most sought-after sub-sectors within financial and professional services investing. The reasons are structural rather than cyclical:
Recurring, annuity-like revenues driven by long-term client relationships
High switching costs and strong client stickiness
Regulatory barriers to entry that limit new competition
Fragmented ownership structures, often founder- or partner-led
Demographic and wealth trends supporting long-term demand
For investors, these characteristics translate into predictable cash flows and defensible market positions. For owners, they create leverage—if the business is positioned correctly and the investor is chosen carefully.
Step one: define what “best investor” actually means
The most common mistake owners make is outsourcing investor selection to valuation alone. In trust and fiduciary services, this is particularly dangerous.
Before approaching the market, shareholders must be clear on their own priorities:
Are you seeking a full exit or partial liquidity with ongoing involvement?
Is your priority capital preservation, growth, or succession planning?
How important is culture, professional autonomy, and brand continuity?
Are you prepared for formal governance, reporting, and external oversight?
Only once these questions are answered can “best investor” be defined. In many cases, the optimal outcome is not a trade sale or the most aggressive Private Equity bidder, but a partner whose incentives, time horizon, and operating style align with the nature of the business.
Understanding the main investor types in the sector
1. Private Equity investors
Private Equity has become increasingly active in the trust and fiduciary space, particularly through buy-and-build strategies. These investors typically acquire a high-quality platform and grow it through acquisitions, professionalisation, and selective geographic or service expansion.
The best PE investors in this sector understand that value creation comes from scale, systems, and risk management, not from cost-cutting or excessive leverage.
What to look for:
Experience in regulated professional services
A track record in wealth, fiduciary, or adjacent sectors
Willingness to preserve senior leadership and client-facing teams
Moderate, sustainable leverage structures
What to be cautious of:
Overly aggressive return targets
Limited regulatory experience
“Financial engineering–led” value creation theses
A well-chosen PE partner can deliver immediate liquidity while creating a second, often larger, exit for founders and partners.
2. Strategic consolidators and corporate buyers
Strategic buyers include listed fiduciary groups, regional consolidators, and international professional services firms seeking expansion.
These buyers can offer:
Full liquidity
Operational integration
Access to broader client networks
However, they often come with trade-offs:
Loss of autonomy
Cultural disruption
Integration risk
Less flexibility on structure and timing
Strategic buyers can be the right answer where succession is the primary issue or where the business already operates in a highly institutionalised model. They are less suitable for owners who wish to remain entrepreneurial or retain meaningful influence post-transaction.
3. Family offices and long-term capital
Family offices are increasingly active in trust and fiduciary services, attracted by stability, reputation, and long-term cash generation.
Their advantages include:
Longer investment horizons
Lower pressure for rapid exits
Cultural and reputational sensitivity
Their limitations:
Slower decision-making
Limited M&A infrastructure
Often less competitive on valuation
Family offices can be excellent partners where capital preservation, legacy, and continuity matter more than maximising short-term price.
What sophisticated investors really look for
Regardless of investor type, the best outcomes go to businesses that understand how investors underwrite risk in this sector.
Key diligence focus areas include:
Regulatory robustness
Investors will scrutinise licensing, compliance frameworks, regulatory history, and jurisdictional exposure. Weaknesses here are valuation killers.
Client concentration and revenue quality
High dependence on a small number of clients, families, or jurisdictions increases perceived risk. Diversification supports both valuation and leverage capacity.
Governance and people risk
Founder or partner dependency is a major issue. Investors want depth of management, clear succession plans, and institutional decision-making.
Financial transparency
Clean, well-documented financials matter more than aggressive adjustments. Trust and fiduciary businesses trade on credibility.
Scalability
Investors pay premiums for platforms that can scale—through acquisitions, new jurisdictions, or adjacent services—without proportionate increases in risk.
Why investor selection is a process, not a meeting
Many owners underestimate how early investor selection really happens. The courting phase—long before formal offers—is where expectations are set, power dynamics form, and optionality is either preserved or lost.
Engaging with a single “friendly” investor early may feel efficient, but it almost always weakens negotiating leverage later. Without competition, even well-intentioned investors will optimise terms in their favour.
The strongest outcomes come from controlled, competitive processes that:
Target a curated group of relevant investors
Create tension between different strategies and capital sources
Allow owners to compare not just price, but behaviour, values, and long-term vision
This is where experienced sell-side advisers make the most material difference.
The role of a specialist M&A adviser
In trust and fiduciary services, the adviser’s role goes well beyond marketing a business.
A specialist adviser will:
Help articulate an investor-grade equity story that balances regulation, risk, and growth
Screen investors for sector credibility, not just capital
Manage information flow to avoid regulatory or client disruption
Anticipate diligence issues before they become deal blockers
Maintain leverage through process discipline and optionality
At Dyer Baade & Company, we focus specifically on aligning investor strategy with business reality. Our independence allows us to challenge both clients and buyers—often advising owners not to proceed with investors who look attractive on paper but are misaligned in practice.
Common mistakes that destroy value
Optimising for headline valuation only
Structure, governance, and future upside often matter more than price.Underestimating regulatory perception
The wrong investor can raise red flags with regulators, clients, and staff.Running a bilateral process
Lack of competition almost always leads to weaker terms.Ignoring post-deal reality
A closed deal can still be a bad deal if incentives and control are misaligned.Choosing speed over strategy
Trust and fiduciary businesses reward patience and preparation.
What the “best” outcomes look like
The most successful transactions in this sector share common characteristics:
Partial liquidity with retained upside
Continuity of leadership and client relationships
Professionalisation without over-bureaucratisation
Clear, executable growth plans
An aligned exit horizon understood by all parties
These outcomes are rarely accidental. They are designed—well before the business is taken to market.
Final thoughts: investor selection is a strategic decision
For owners of trust and fiduciary services businesses, selling to the right investor is not about exiting—it is about transitioning ownership responsibly.
The sector rewards discretion, foresight, and alignment. Those who approach investor selection strategically—rather than reactively—consistently achieve better valuations, smoother transactions, and stronger long-term outcomes.
If you are considering bringing in an investor, now or in the future, the most valuable first step is not a conversation with a buyer—but a confidential discussion with an adviser who understands how investors think, how regulators react, and how value is really created in this space.
If you would like to explore what the right investor might look like for your trust or fiduciary services business, we would be happy to arrange a confidential strategic conversation.