Associated Planners’ Asian push caught in gridlock

AssociatedPlanners Financial Services’ (APFS) expansion into Asia is close to derailment after the stalling of negotiations with a prospective Singaporean joint venture partner in creating a financial advisory company.

“At this stage there’s a chance the deal will fall over as we have an issue in terms of equity dilution and the capital we’re putting into it,” APFS managing director Ray Miles says.

“It’ll either be sorted out and corrected this week or the deal will be off.”

Miles was scheduled to speak with his counterparts in Singapore yesterday in a bid to save the deal and says he will know for sure whether the two groups will be able to proceed in setting up the joint venture business.

Miles was unable to reveal the details of the Singapore firm concerned as it is a listed entity and will have to notify the stock market before details can be revealed.

“We actually applied for a licence and all those requirements but there’s still a couple of sticking points in the contract for the project between them and us, so we’re having some issues.

“We have jointly registered a financial advising company and they’re to provide the capital while we provide the intellectual property to get the thing running,” Miles says.

The unnamed entity that APFS is in discussion with is the only group it has dealt with in relation to its plans to expand into Singapore and Asia.

“We were actually approached by them they had a look at groups in America and the UK, but [they approached APFS] because of the huge amount of financial services legislation they have over there,” Miles says.

“They felt financial planning is going to be the next big thing in Singapore and wanted to get in first, and they needed someone to help them do it.”