At first glance Sanlam UK’s purchase of the private client business of Thesis Group along with Pallant Independent, its financial planning arm, appears relatively innocuous.

The deal will provide Sanlam with an additional £1.2 billion of client assets. Even so, however, at £4.2 billion in private client assets this will hardly make Sanlam a UK wealth management giant.

Nonetheless, the deal is indicative of yet another South African-based institution on the march in the UK, especially when a plethora of other recent acquisitions are taken into account.

And with Jonathan Polin, its current chief executive, a...