Another consolidator emerges from the west
Yet another accounting consolidator group from Perth will list on the ASX next month.
Financial Services Group (FSG) will tomorrow make available a $6 million initial public offer to float its newly formed accounting and financial services group on the stock market. This comes hot on the heels of another recent consolidator float, Sterling Financial Services, which was reported by Money Management last week.
Like Sterling, FSG says it has initial plans to acquire six West Australian accounting practices. The total number of shared clients of the firms earmarked by FSG is 11,500, generating fees of $3.7 million annually.
FSG director Darren Gleeson says that the group formed in June last year, and has worked for a long time to get the group to the verge of listing.
"At the moment, we want to build the business up in WA to be worth about $15 to $20 million, before moving on to NSW where we plan to build up another $20 to 30 million. We plan to expand state by state," Gleeson says.
According to Gleeson, FSG will be buying small to medium accounting practices and then provide the clients of those practices with access to financial planners.
"FSG will be leaving the principals and staff of each accounting practice as they are, and then we will be recruiting financial planners and putting them in each of the accounting offices," he says.
Gleeson doesn't agree that FSG will be competing head-to-head with Sterling, listing on the ASX within a week of each other.
"In a way we're competitors, in that we're in the same business, but we're also competing with Investor Group, Harts, and the other consolidators," he says.
"The market is so big that consolidators have only snared about 1 per cent of accounting firms out there, so we shouldn't be getting in each other's way at this stage."
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