A FIRM offer for financial services company IFG is expected to be made as early as next week.

IFG announced yesterday that Peter Priestley, the board representative of investment vehicle Fiordland which owns almost 20 per cent of the company, has “absented himself from all deliberations, meetings and decisions of the board during the current period”.

A private equity company with close links to Fiordland has expressed an interest in buying IFG. Disruptive Capital Finance, which is owned by Edmund Truell, the main financier behind Fiordland, made an approach for the company. This followed a preliminary approach from another London-based private equity interest Bregal Capital.

While IFG is best known as a mortgage provider in Ireland, the company has become the leading player in the lucrative bespoke self-invested personal pensions (SIPP) market in Britain, a position it solidified through its acquisition of British pensions company James Hay in late 2009.

Fiordland’s involvement with IFG dates from this time, when it provided half of the €50 million raised by IFG to buy James Hay.

IFG’s share price, which had been trading around the €1.30 to €1.40 level for most of this year, has soared following the announcement of the preliminary offer on May 4th. It closed at €1.83 yesterday.

Other significant shareholders in IFG include institutional shareholders Dexia and Nordea Bank Danmark, UK hedge fund Promethean, and TS Capital, an investment vehicle for Philip Lynch’s One51.