Scaling up a ‘bigger, better and stronger’ advice network
WT Financial managing director, Keith Cullen, says the firm is looking inward when it comes to M&A, with a focus on helping its practices become “bigger, better and stronger”.
Speaking on a webinar as it announced its first-half results for FY26, Cullen said WT Financial had concluded its own M&A activities at a licensee level, and is now looking into helping its own practices scale up.
The licensee had previously acquired Millennium3 from Insignia in December 2023, and Sentry Group in June 2021.
“Acquisition is not a key strategy for us. We’ve achieved the scale that we need for us to meet the needs our practices are demanding. There are some subscale operators out there who will probably look to consolidate among themselves or as part of a larger group, but it doesn’t drive us.”
On the other hand, he said he was seeing firms in the WT Financial network look to scale up, and he believes this previous M&A experience can help them achieve this.
“There is a significant opportunity for practices to scale swiftly via M&A, especially in a fragmented market.
“We are seeing increasing demand from practices in our network and external to the network for support and advice on M&A activity, including help to access debt and equity markets, and for support with their legal and due diligence. We are very well-positioned to play a key role here with considerable experience and to respond to that demand from our practices, which also presents new revenue and profit opportunities for the business.
“We want our practices to become profitable, to drive their own revenue, build their own asset base; and that’s why we are so closely aligned with our practices, so we are all on the same page in achieving that outcome.
“If we can help them become bigger, better and stronger, then we become bigger, better, stronger and more profitable for our shareholders."
For example, he said, this demand can come from practices with a single adviser where the adviser is looking at succession planning in expectation of retirement.
“Those in their 50s or early 60s who may have been a single practitioner, they are thinking about how they are going to maximise their asset value for when they are ready to exit, and that includes by coming into a larger practice.
“We are already working with four advisers who are looking to come together to form one large firm, and three of them are looking to retire in the next few years. They have realised that if they stay as a small firm, then they have to do everything – all the admin, all the tech, all the marketing. If they are a larger firm, that gives them more time to sit with more clients, to sign new clients and do things that will maximise the value of the firm.”
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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