‘Madison Welcome Event’ at Infocus head office in the Sunshine Coast. Photo supplied.

Infocus will officially acquire 100 per cent of Madison from ASX-listed Clime Investment Management, adding 54 authorised representatives in 32 financial advisory practices to its network.

Clime and Infocus announced in late May a $2 million binding heads of agreement for the latter to acquire Madison and the WealthPortal platform, after an earlier exclusive, non-binding heads of agreement between Madison and Practice Development Group (PDG) to form a strategic operating alliance fell through.

Infocus founder and managing director Darren Steinhardt tells Professional Planner the Madison branding will remain and there are no current plans to make material changes or roll Madison advisers into the Infocus license.

“There’s not one of the advisers in that network that we wouldn’t have welcomed into our business if we recruited them organically, we are very happy with that,” Steinhardt says.

“We want to retain the Madison brand as it has good history, we want to respect that. There’s no intention of rolling anybody into Infocus. There’s certainly an intention of getting the best of both groups have to offer and improving the offer that we have to the market overall.”

While licensee M&A activity has been the norm over the last few years, Steinhardt says gaining scale wasn’t the driving force behind the move.

“Infocus itself is already at a scale that’s comfortable,” Steinhardt says.

“When opportunities arise as they have from time to time for good transactional-based growth we’ll look at them. Madison, for us, was a damn good fit.”

Infocus estimates it now has a market share of 1.5 per cent, making it the 12th largest financial advisory network in Australia.

Total group adviser numbers are estimated to be over 200, with $17 billion of funds under advice and in-force risk insurance premiums of around $210 million.

Infocus hosted Madison advisers at a welcome event at its Sunshine Coast head office, meeting 80 per cent of practices in person.

“We are wanting to grow and the advisers in the Madison [license] are a very good cultural fit to our group,” Steinhardt says. “They’ve got a long history and I’ve known the group for some time.”

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