Investor Group to take on Melbourne
By Ross Kelly
IN an attempt to replicate the scale of its Sydney business in its home-town of Melbourne, listed financial planning and accountancy firm Investor Group has agreed to buy prominent Melbourne-based accountancy firm Schoenfelds.
Based in Melbourne’s St Kilda Road precinct, Schoenfelds provides traditional accountancy services to mid-tier clients and also has a small financial planning division, which Investor Group hopes to grow through the acquisition.
“What we’ve got there is an excellent client base that we can actually provide more services to in financial planning,” Investor Group managing director Kevin White said.
Schoenfelds will be merged with Investor Group member firm WHK Carricks. The merged firm will be called WHK Greenwoods to align with Investor Group’s Sydney office of the same name.
“We have built a quite a large firm in Sydney in the form of WHK Greenwoods, now offering a total accounting, tax, audit, financial planning, wealth management and superannuation business. It’s a significant business employing over 200 people. We think there’s an opportunity to replicate that sort of business in Melbourne,” White said.
Schoenfelds founding partner Michael Schoenfeld will be managing principal of WHK Greenwoods’ Melbourne outfit.
Established by Schoenfeld in 1978, his firm has five partners, around 60 staff and an annual revenue of approximately $7 million.
Conditional upon completion of a formal sales agreement, the acquisition is expected to come into effect on July 1, 2005.
Investor Group is Australia’s fifth largest accountancy business. Its distribution network consists of 19 accountancy firms and two specialist financial planning practices spread across Australia and New Zealand.
Recommended for you
Net cash flow on AMP’s platforms saw a substantial jump in the last quarter to $740 million, while its new digital advice offering boosted flows to superannuation and investment.
Insignia Financial has provided an update on the status of its private equity bidders as an initial six-week due diligence period comes to an end.
A judge has detailed how individuals lent as much as $1.1 million each to former financial adviser Anthony Del Vecchio, only learning when they contacted his employer that nothing had ever been invested.
Having rejected the possibility of an IPO, Mason Stevens’ CEO details why the wealth platform went down the PE route and how it intends to accelerate its growth ambitions in financial advice.
