C Hoare & Co, which sold its wealth management business to Cazenove Capital Management, a division of Schroders, on 17 February, has disclosed in its annual report and consolidated financial statements that it has made provision for payments of £12.2 million in redress to customers in the last financial year ending in March.

In the report and accounts for March 2017 at note 24 it states: "The bank has established a provision for amounts payable in respect of a specific pool of regulated agreements. The provision is management's best estimate of the anticipated costs and includes interest and other charges expected to be returned to customers who hold, or have held, these types of loans with the bank. The total amount of the provision held is £12.2 million. The eligibility of these costs for tax relief is under review and as such these costs have been currently treated as disallowable pending outcome of the review."

Regulatory costs are thought to have been behind the sale of the 20-year-old wealth arm at the private bank, which was founded in 1672. At the time of the announcement of the firm's decision to sell, Alexander Hoare told the press that the firm's regulation by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority (which used to be one and the same regulator before 2013) was hard for it to endure. The deluge of new regulation seems to have been the final straw for the business. According to one report, the sale of the wealth business cut C Hoare's regulatory burden by half.

This March Alexander Hoare announced that the bank had decided to sell its investment dealing and custody business to Canaccord Genuity Wealth Ltd, this being the final part of its "divestment strategy." He said that the bank had chosen the firm partly because it is able to "develop the business and meet the increasing regulatory responsibilities it will require."