Insurance company Swinton has said its vigorous strategy of acquiring other businesses has seen its income boosted by nearly a third despite it being a difficult year in the insurance market.

The Manchester-headquartered company made 33 acquisitions in the year to December 2009, writing down more than a million new policies and growing its net income by 29.4 per cent to £263.2 million.

Its acquisitions saw it add 116 new branches to its UK-wide portfolio, which now stands at a total of 603.

Chief executive Peter Halpin investing in high street branches through acquisitions has seen it stand in opposition to competitors, many of whom have sacrifices their high street presences in favour of focusing on online sales.

He said, "Adding 1 million extra policies in 2009 is an impressive demonstration of our growth-through-investment plan, which we will continue through both strategic acquisitions and organic growth over the next five years."

He explained that their investment in on and off-line channels is planned to continue into 2011. The company's headcount rose in the year to December 2009 from 3,383 to 3,654 and Mr Halpin said he could firmly credit their approach to business with encouraging brand loyalty and winning new customers.

Private equity players have increased their activity substantially in the first 3 months of this year compared to last year. In fact according the Centre of Management Buyout Research at Nottingham University (CMBOR) the £5bn in deal value in the first quarter of this year was more than they managed in the whole of 2009. However, the total deal volumes are eclipsed by the buying frenzy in the boom years where £20bn worth of buyouts were completed in a single quarter. Interestingly there has been increased activity in the UK compared to the US and Europe where private equity is still in the doldrums.

One reason for the increased levels is the growth in the secondary buy-out market where one private equity house sells to another. This accounted for three quarters of buyouts by value in the first quarter. Recent secondary buyouts include the Clayton Dubilier & Rice’s £400m buyout of British Car Auctions from Montague. Apax partners £975m purchase of pharmaceutical distributor Marken from Intermediate Capital Group was the third time that the business had been owned by a private equity house. These sort of deals where businesses are sold between private equity houses has been criticized as investors often have holdings in both the buyers and the sellers and the investors sometimes has the same asset as before but with fees and profit share taken out.

According to Christiian Marriott a director of Barclays Private Equity that sponsored the research by CMBOR said that many private equity firms have large amounts of capital that they need to deploy and this has lead to a more active market. However, some worry that this need to deploy capital has increased competition for assets and hence prices have started to rise. As such, the prices may not be sustainable. However, new capital requirement rules for banks could restrict lending for private equity deals in the future.

High profile mortgage advice company, John Charcol, has been bought by Towergate Financial, the financial advice arm of the Towergate Partnership. The sale was announced yesterday, only a day after the struggling mortgage broker went into administration.

It has been reported that, under the terms of the deal, Charcol's 100 staff and directors will move to Towergate Financial and will be based, for the most part, in London.

Towergate was set up in 1997 by Peter Cullum, the group's executive chairman, and specialises in niche insurance business. Its headquarters are in Kent but its 4,500 employees are based in around 100 offices throughout the UK. The company has a turnover of £318m.

Towergate's acquisition ties in with its objective to establish a mortgage advice service for wealthy individuals as well as corporate clients. It has already purchased over 150 broking firms and underwriting agencies.

Mr Cullen said: "This is another great acquisition for Towergate which fits our strategy of brand leadership in our specialist fields."

There is a certain amount of controversy surrounding the sale as it involved a pre-pack process, which will mean that although more than 100 jobs will be saved, John Charcol's creditors will be out of pocket.

Information has not been released on how much Towergate paid for the company but it is believed to be a nominal sum.

The Competition Commission has given provisional go-ahead to ITV for the sale of social networking site Friends Reunited to online genealogy company Brightsolid.

ITV bought Friends Reunited for £170m in December 2005 and announced its intention to sell the business last year after suffering heavy mid-year losses.

Brightsolid already owns genealogy sites FindMyPast.com and 1911Census.com. As Friends Reunited is the parent company of genealogy site, Genes Reunited, Brightsolid's proposed £25m acquisition of Friends Reunited was referred to the Competition Commission when the proposed sale was announced last summer.

The regulator's provisional findings are that this acquisition would not result in a reduction of competition for consumers.

ITV and Brightside have both welcomed the news and the National Archive has also announced its support for the deal.

It is expected that Brightside will merge its existing genealogy sites with Genes Reunited. However, even after this merger, the main player in the market, Ancestry.co.uk, will remain the largest in the market.

The area of genealogy research is growing rapidly, with estimates that approximately 2 million people access genealogy websites in the UK every month.

So how did businesses take advantage of the 10% rate of capital gain tax payable on the selling of a business after the 5th April this year? Linda Bennett of LK Bennett shoes and the potato farmer behind Tyrells Crisps had a neat trick. They effectively “sold” their businesses to a trust otherwise known as warehousing. Capital gains tax rules judge the date of disposal as being when an unconditional contract is entered into, not when a deal is completed. The unconditional agreement was to sell the business to a trust contingent on finding a third party buyer. As such, this crystallised any gain so as to be liable for the 10% rate with a view to disposing of the business by the trust later in the year.

So what is the problem? The difficulty could come where the company that is warehoused is no longer able or willing to be sold. In this case the Inland Revenue may consider that you have sold a company to your trust and then effectively bought it back by tearing up the unconditional sale agreement. This would mean that you may face a large tax bill without the proceeds to pay it. Now that would be bad news.

The Inland revenue has always maintained that advance clearance or approval may be given to any sort of tax avoidance measure including company sales. As such it could be that if anyone had any doubts they should have consulted the revenue first. If the economy becomes more fragile and many potential sales fall through then entrepreneurs will also be out of pocket on stamp duty and legal fees.

However, it is unlikely that in practice the inland revenue would try and force this issue and demand payment of tax when no real benefit or proceeds have been realised. But the Inland revenue are not generally considered to be very generous so it is important to be vigilant.