Accountants become more important to PIS
In addition to its expansion via acquisition, Professional Investment Services (PIS) has also announced it is courting more accountancy practices in a push to expand its referral base.
Since mid-January the group’s Program 500 initiative has signed up more than 85 accountancy firms.
The initiative, which began as a way to fill the gap of expected growth in superannuation money in the coming year, is already more than 25 per cent of the way to its target, having recruited firms totalling 113 practice principals and 283 professional staff.
PIS chief executive Robbie Bennetts said the program has been an incredible success and has far exceeded the group’s preliminary benchmarks that were set for March 2008.
He said the major success of the Program 500 recruiting push can be attributed to the fact that PIS was not taking equity in any of the accountancy practices that signed up.
“We add an asset to their business, but they haven’t had to sell their soul in order to benefit from our services,” Bennetts said.
“The model we offer is between four to five years. We find an adviser that mirror their professional and ethical standards, and help them build their practice. By the time the plan has completed we expect their practice to have trebled. Any revenue is then shared.”
According to Bennetts, when some financial advisory companies recruit accountancy firms they purchase equity in the practice, which ties the practice to the company and its products.
The group’s goal in having the accountants keep their ownership independence is to make those partner firms more profitable as stand-alone businesses.
As it costs nothing to join or leave the program, strong professional loyalties with both accountants and the PIS advisers would eventuate.
Bennetts believes the initiative will strengthen the dealer group’s income stream, but could not quantify the magnitude of the impact as yet.
He encouraged those accountancy practices interested in entering these agreements to do so now as PIS was looking to list on the Australian Securities Exchange in the very near future.
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