Disciplined financial controls and diligent operational process have helped CountPlus achieve a 65% increase in its net profit attributable to shareholders, which amounted to $4.082 million for the six months ending December 31, 2020.
The board said in an announcement made to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) an interim dividend of 1.25 cents per share which was consistent with the same period last year.
Following this, underlying firm revenue increased by 7% during the period, with productivity improvement showing 8% contribution to margin improvement on the same period last year while underlying EBITA from firms stood at $7.434 million, or represented an 11% increase on the same period last year, while earnings from associate firms under the CountPlus Owner, driver-partner model increased by 66% on the same period last year.
CountPlus’ chief executive and managing director, Matthew Rowe, said that the firm’s ‘clean’ sustainable financial advice model, with a strong focus on delivering client-centric accounting and financial advice, helped improve profitability.
“The deliberate pivot to a “clean” economic model has created a logical home for quality financial advisers to join the Count Financial national network,” he said.
The Count Financial network, which was purposely fewer in number today than when acquired by CountPlus on October 1, 2019, managed to deliver improved earnings and profitability, increasing its earnings to $1.601 million (EBITA) during this this 1H21 period, a 74% increase on the prior corresponding period of $0.926 million.
In discussing external challenges during the six months to end December 2020, Rowe said CountPlus had capacity to act and confront the unforeseen stresses of the global COVID-19 pandemic and flow-on domestic economic challenges.
“A dominant theme for this reporting period is an ongoing caution concerning the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, balanced with considered optimism,” he said.
“The CountPlus and Count Financial executive team has confidence that the Company will make considered and steady progress as we continue to align our people, partner firms, and new business acquisitions with the CountPlus vision of shared values, mutual success, and our strong sense of community.
“A sustainable Count Financial value proposition and underlying economic model supports our goal of being the natural ‘clean’ licensee destination for quality financial advisers. The business is demonstrating its competitive strengths within a challenging operating environment, with positive signals for growth.”
