Wealth management firm Tavistock has said a court has ruled in its favour in the latest round of its legal battle with rival wealth management firm Titan.
In a stock exchange announcement today (December 16), the firm provided an update, saying its most recent request to have Titan Wealth added to the wider legal action was granted and it was awarded legal costs for the latest part of the hearing.
The dispute centres on an agreement made between the firms in June 2021, when Titan and Tavistock entered into what both firms called at the time a “10 year strategic partnership”.
This involved Titan paying £40mn to acquire Tavistock’s multi-asset funds business, which had assets under management of £1bn.
As part of the deal further payments may have become due to Tavistock in future depending on the financial performance of the Acumen multi-asset funds, with 50 per cent of any net income accrued as a result of growth in those funds being paid to Tavistock over the subsequent 10-year period.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tavistock would act as a distributor for the products Titan acquired from it.
As part of the agreement, John Lieper, chief investment officer at Tavistock, and other colleagues on the investment team, moved to Titan.
Less than a year after the deal was announced, Tavistock claimed it had uncovered multiple breaches of the agreement by Titan, such that, in Tavistock’s view, the performance of the Acumen funds collapsed.
Titan issued its own legal proceedings against Tavistock, in a bid to get the case struck out.
Dispute over model portfolios
Tavistock’s model portfolio range was not included in the original sale agreement, though Titan was instead retained as the investment manager for the model portfolio range.
In June 2025, Tavistock issued further legal proceedings, seeking to add Titan Wealth Holdings, a subsidiary of the main Titan business, to the legal action. The original legal action was against Titan Asset Management, another subsidiary of the main Titan business.
Tavistock wished to expand its claim to include what it claimed were “breach of confidence, alleged misuse of trade secrets and copyright infringement”, by Titan Wealth in the operation of its own model portfolio service.
Titan’s model portfolio service competes with that of Tavistock.
In today’s announcement Tavistock said it has won its case to have Titan Wealth added to the wider legal action, while a counter claim by Titan to have the proceedings struck out was rejected by the judge.
Tavistock was awarded its costs for this part of the hearing, with Titan required to pay an initial £250,000.
The wider hearing into all of the claims made by both parties continues.
A spokesperson for Titan said: “We respect the court’s decision that, procedurally, the defendants have satisfied the low threshold required to introduce into their pleading the amendments Titan has been contesting.
“Titan nevertheless maintains that the defendants’ counterclaims are factually and legally flawed and are likely to fail at the trial, which remains listed to take place in the summer of 2027.”
david.thorpe@ft.com
