Swanson moves to chair acquisitive Centrepoint

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

24 August 2023

Centrepoint Alliance has reinforced its ability to grow declaring as part of its full-year results that it has initiated the establishment of a $10 million debt facility to fund acquisitions and announcing that former Clearview managing director, Simon Swanson, will become its new chair.

The Centrepoint result followed on from Clearview’s confirmation that it would be exiting wealth management to focus on life insurance – a move which confirms that the its 28% stake in Centrepoint is on the block.

Swanson had been a member of the Centrepoint board since ClearView’s sale of its wealth management business in 2021.

The $10 million debt facility being obtained by Centrepoint has been announced on the back of a 19% increase in revenue underpinning a 4% increase in gross profit and a net profit after tax of $6.3 million.

Centrepoint’s performance and its $10 million debt facility need to be seen against the background of last year’s $65 million takeover bid from its rival, Diverger, and the state of the balance sheets of some other rival publicly-listed financial advice licensees.

The Centrepoint results announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) said the company was well positioned to take advantage of the positive changes occurring in the industry, emphasising the Centrepoint is “a clear number three in the market ranked by adviser numbers”.

But what was clear from the company’s announcement was that is acquisition of ClearView Wealth had been a considerable driver of growth with Centrepoint noting that gross revenue had increased by $43.1 million with $22.4 million in organised adviser expansion and $20.7 million from the ClearView Wealth acquisition.

The company’s investor briefing pointed to Centrepoint’s value chain including adviser fee revenue of $446 million based on average advice fees of $2,900 per client alongside platform revenue of $192 million and asset management of $312 million.

The company said its strategy is to grow its adviser network and expand its service offering. It said that it currently has 511 authorised representatives operating under the company’s licenses along with 196 self-licensed practices covering around 797 advisers.