PictureWealth becomes mega-licensee with Capstone takeover

PictureWealth has acquired Capstone Financial Planning, turning the wealth fintech founded in 2017 into one of the largest licensee owners in the country.

The combined group will have $22 billion in funds under advice (FUA) and more than 360 advisers nationally, lifted by Capstone’s $13.5 billion FUA and 220 advisers.

Those numbers would put it behind Entireti (1081), Centrepoint Alliance (589), WT Financial Group (530), Count (527), Rhombus Advisory (485) and Morgans (440), according to Wealth Data figures.

The terms of the transaction are undisclosed, but all staff will continue under their existing employment arrangements and the official date for Capstone joining the PictureWealth Group is 17 June 2026.

Capstone will continue to operate under its own name and founder Grant O’Riley will remain as managing director. The firm will continue to operate from its head office in the Melbourne CBD with 55 staff.

PictureWealth chief executive Allan Maitland tells Professional Planner discussions and due diligence had been taking place over the past eight or nine months to make sure a deal aligned with both parties.

“We saw an extremely well-run licensee business at scale with a founder at the heart of it that had an absolute passion for advice, had a passion for the advisers in the network and ultimately had a passion for technology,” Maitland says.

“For any adviser in the market that wants a dealer group that is focused passionately on advice and technology and has already advanced in the technology space, that’s I suppose, ultimately where we see that.”

Perth-based PictureWealth was founded in 2017 as a fintech, aiming to combine AI with human advice, and co-founded by David Pettit, Marko Sekez and Neal Cross.

The group, which had 10 advisers, acquired Futuro Financial Services in 2023 adding a further 113 representatives to its network.

The acquisition will also include CapBack, the recently launched self-licensed back-office service provider spun off from Capstone.

Maitland says the firm continues to be acquisitive and will acquire further businesses when the right opportunities come along and there’s the right cultural alignment.

“From our point of view, we’re happy to have discussions around further acquisitions post this Capstone acquisition and that’ll be both across the employed space and the self-employed space,” Maitland says.

Capstone’s authorised representatives are self-employed and the business has focused on holistic financial advice ever since it was founded in 2002 by O’Riley.

While PictureWealth is open to acquiring self-employed or salaried advice practices, Maitland sees strong potential in the latter as it’s easier to rapidly deploy technology.

“It’s also an area that we can get in front of clients more rapidly as well and make acquisitions from a succession point of view that we believe was missing in the market,” Maitland says.

“We’ve got this one platform being created where you can bring advisers in from the very start, being a PY [professional year adviser], where you can bring staff into the industry, take them right through either a salary channel or a self-employed channel.”

Picture Wealth Holdings is the parent company of the PictureWealth Group, which comprises PictureWealth Advisory, PictureWealth Lending, the Futuro Financial Services AFSL; the Insight Investment Services AFSL; the Capstone Financial Planning AFSL; and CapBack.

Maitland says the firm’s mission is delivering advice “at the speed of life”.

“The greatest gap that we see in enabling more advice to more lives is [getting] the right technology, end-to-end, inside the advice networks,” Maitland said.

“But also, how do we connect clients to the right advice professionals and that’s an important distinction as well with the limited number of advisers in the market and their constraints on capacity.”

Maitland says the combination of human and token capital – referring to AI token costs –  is going to be critical for the success and sustainability of advice businesses.

“We want more advisers and more of our staff using technology to create efficiencies, to be creative,” Maitland says.

“There is absolute value in – let’s call it human judgement, creativity and relationships – that to us, across the advice network, is critical.

“It’s absolutely where the human capital advisers and staff play an extremely important role. The technology side, you’ve got a computing power that is incredibly powerful today and how do we harness that the best to enable those advisers and our staff.”