St George buys stake in Stockford

St George has spent $10 million on a 7 per cent stake in burgeoning accounting and financial planning consolidator Stockford, valuing the group at nearly $150 million.

St George has also placed a former senior executive from its Asgard master trust and Securitor and Pact financial planning businesses in charge of the group's financial services operations. Mark Rantall has been working with Stockford executives over the past few months in developing a management structure for the new business along with developing alliances for St George with other financial planning groups. He will now hold the position as general manager of financial services.

Rantall says Stockford has about 50 financial planners spread throughout Australia, both in specialist financial panning practices and working as a part of accounting practices. Most of the advisers have come on board through acquisitions by Stockford over the past 18 months.

Stockford is looking to aggressively build adviser numbers and funds under advice in the near future. Rantall says the group currently has $1.5 billion under advice and will look to grow to $5 billion under advice within three years.

Revenue was $97 million in the past year, including $14 million from the financial planning operations.

Stockford will list on the Australian Stock Exchange in early November and expects to have a prospectus on the market by next week. Under the terms of the deal announced today, St George has the opportunity to raise its stake to 10 per cent. Other institutional investors are looking to take significant stakes in the group, according to Rantall.

St George financial services general manager Richard Cawsey will take a chair on the board of Stockford, which is to be chaired by the founder of County NatWest Australia, Peter Hall.

The deal is the second financial planning purchase by St George in the past 18 months after buying KPMG's financial planning arm to bolster its private clients business.