IMB signs up IPAC

IPAC has signed a joint venture agreement with Illawarra Mutual Building Society (IMB) to develop a financial planning business for IMB members.

The joint venture will be known as IMB Financial Planning and is owned in equal parts by IPAC and IMB.

IPAC chief executive officer Peeyush Gupta says the existing IMB financial planning service, which has been running for a decade, will make up the nucleus of IMP Financial Planning, with existing staff transferring to the new group. IPAC will provide the management resources and a business model to implement a growth strategy for the group.

"There are many firms with clients, for example accounting firms, that attempt to build up a financial planning business. However it is often not successful," he says.

"IPAC has the management resources and a business model, as well as the management expertise to assist."

Gupta says it will only be a matter of weeks before the financial planning arm is up and running. It will operate in the Illawarra, South Coast & Southern Highlands and Macarthur regions of NSW as well as the ACT.

The joint venture furthers an association between the two groups initially established in 1999 when IMB became part of IPAC's Strategic Partner Program. In the Strategic Partner Program, IPAC partners itself with independent financial planning groups who adopt the IPAC business model in order to increase growth.