Bendigo Bank looks to build out SMSF advice
Bendigo Financial Planning (BFP) has purchased Wheeler Financial Services, a boutique financial planning practice in Geelong, to boost its self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) advice capacity.
Bendigo Wealth executive John Billington said the purchase, which was finalised in mid-November, picked up all four planners in the practice, with director and part-owner Brian Quarrell remaining with the business.
The advisers have now shifted to Bendigo’s licence, and the practice has changed its name to that of BFP. Wheeler’s staff will also remain with the practice.
Billington said that about 90 per cent of advice provided through Wheeler’s was related to SMSFs, which was an area BFP was seeking to develop further.
“We have focused our time on building our funds under management and our financial planning advice areas, but SMSFs take up more than half of the advice space and we saw the need to grow our capacity in this space,” Billington said.
Billington said BFP would be likely to add another two practices before the end of the financial year, but this was dependent on those businesses meeting acquisition criteria. He said the criteria that was applied with Wheeler’s acquisition - of a return on equity based on multiples of revenue - would also be applied with future acquisitions.
At present BFP has 60 advisers at the tier 3, or complex advice level, and a further 40 representatives at the tier 1 and 2 advice level.
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