Centrepoint acquires Financial Advice Matters
Publicly-listed financial planning licensee Centrepoint Alliance has acquired Brisbane-based financial planning firm, Financial Advice Matters (FAM).
Centrepoint announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that it had entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100% of Financial Advice Matters which has approximately 1,450 client and funds under advice (FUA) in excess of $1 billion.
It said FAM operates eight offices throughout Queensland and generated revenue of $6.1 million in the 2023 financial year.
The announcement said that FAM is already a corporate authorised representative of Centrepoint.
The transaction is valued at $10 million which will be funded from Centrepoint’s existing cash reserves and a newly established $10 million debt facility with National Australia Bank.
Sadly it looks like vertical integration of advice and product is being reinvented and re-established. The old models of big product companies with lots of authorised reps may be declining, but there is a new model based around inhouse SMAs and “practice equity partnerships”. The end result is the same. Consumers are receiving conflicted advice from advisers who are highly influenced/controlled by companies that make their money through product sales.
It would have been so easy for Hayne to just ban vertical integration and solve this problem once and for all. Instead we have s923A and Standard 3 which are supposed to be a solution, but are so unworkable in practice they are largely ineffective at protecting consumers.
They really need to do away with the whole AFSL system for qualified financial advisers.