Countplus strategy to benefit Gen Y

Countplus chairman Barry Lambert believes a new business model announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) will make it easier for newer and younger practice principals to gain and maintain a foothold in the accounting/planning space.

Discussing the new Countplus ownership model "C+2", Lambert said he believed it was a strategy which would ultimately make it easier for Gen Y in the context of larger firms and the new business/regulatory environment impacting the industry.

"What it does is ultimately makes it easier for new principals to buy in and to not have their options unduly limited," he said.

The new Countplus strategy would see the eventual listing of a new entity on the ASX. Lambert suggested that given the pace of implementation, this might occur faster than the 4.5 years it had taken for Countplus to emerge as a listed entity out of Count Financial.

The Countplus ASX announcement said a feature of the new model was that principals of firms acquired under the C+2 strategy would retain direct ownership of between 40 per cent and 49 per cent of their business after listing; retain management control, subject to shareholder agreement; as well as an initial holding in the proposed listed vehicle which would not be subject to escrow.

Lambert said that the strategy had been under development for some time and he believed it represented a necessary answer to the changing requirements of the industry and the reality that some existing models were not going to be optimal for larger firms.