‘Pull a finger out’ – Average time taken by FCA to approve acquisitions doubles
The Financial Conduct Authority's average time taken to approve acquisitions has more than doubled, leading to calls for the regulator to 'get things moving' to help brokers buy and sell businesses much faster.
A Freedom of Information request from Insurance Age has revealed the average FCA time taken to approve acquisitions of a firm with permission to trade as a general insurance broker has soared in just four years.
The FOI request shows it took 41.6 days in 2018/19 but in the current financial year it has taken 99.5 days on average to approve acquisitions (see table below).
So far this year there have been 454 acquisitions approved, across the full financial year of 2021/22 there were 845
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