Financial Index Wealth Accountants is still on the hunt for large accounting firms and quality advice businesses, following the announcement of the group’s 46thacquisition.
Financial Index Wealth Accountants, which announced its acquisition of Centric Wealth on Sunday, will keep and invest in the Centric Wealth brand but move to a shared back-office arrangement for compliance, workflow and customer relationship management systems, FIWA founder and chief executive Spiro Paule told Professional Planner Online.
The group will also use its scale to negotiate more competitive professional indemnity insurance cover, and investment management and administration fees.
Paule, who describes himself as “habitually acquisitive” said the group was still looking for a “significant acquisition in the accounting space to round out its offer, and help accumulate scale”.
He said prices were still “surprisingly firm” despite the uncertainty surrounding the changes under the Future of Financial Advice reforms.
“Centric is a big deal so we won’t move on straight away. Completing and complying with the takeover scheme will take several months but we’re still focused on acquisitions in the accounting space,” he said.
FIWA has completed approximately four transactions per year since its inception in 2002 including its 2009 acquisition of the remainder of the Storm Financial client book from liquidators KordaMentha.
All acquired businesses are rebranded Financial Index Wealth Accountants and integrated with the group’s centralised back-office, with the exception of Canberra-based Civic Financial Planning, which specialises in retirement and redundancy advice for Commonwealth and ACT government employees.
“We will retain Centric Wealth as a standalone brand like Civic but we will gain efficiencies in the backoffice because we believe our proprietary systems and processes are world class,” Paule said.
Like FIWA, Centric Wealth has been steadily moving its clients to managed discretionary accounts. Both firms have approximately 3,000 clients on an MDA structure.
Paule said both groups also offered similar model portfolios, although FIWA offers 26 portfolios while Centric Wealth has eight.
