Count chief executive Hugh Humphrey has provided further details on the makeup of the firm’s advisers following churn after the Diverger deal.
At the time of merger completion between Count and Diverger in March, Humphrey said Count expected to have 550 authorised representatives (ARs) on its books.
In its FY24 results, the firm said it has 547 ARs which rises to 706 when including limited ARs. This is up from 379 ARs in FY23, largely thanks to the merger with Diverger.
On a shareholder webinar, Humphrey was asked about the churn of advisers seen on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register (FAR) since the transaction, particularly at Merit Wealth which were restricted to SMSF advice.
Around 20 advisers have left Merit Wealth this year, according to Wealth Data.
Humphrey said: “When we announced the acquisition, I said 550 financial advisers would be the combined ARs at completion and that’s because the limited ARs on our books, largely within Merit Wealth, are a different type of authorisation who may only give advice once or twice a year or do a piece of work for a client around a self-managed superannuation fund. That’s very different to an adviser who has 150–200 ongoing financial advice clients and very different in their revenue.
“We are ahead of our expectation of 550, and we are also working to clean up our other ARs such as employees who were ARs but are not providing advice to customers.
“My key message regarding ARs is that we look at firms, we look at revenue, and we support that revenue growth because we participate in it. We’re seeing growth in gross business earnings and in revenue, and that’s what we look for. We are also onboarding new firms across all the licensees – Paragem, GPS and the Count AFSL.
“There’s a lot of talk about adviser movement and ARs coming off the ASIC register, but most often the movement there is an employee within a group, PY candidates who need to be added to the FAR. There’s very little movement in terms of firm, and that’s our focus.”
Funds under advice for FY24 were $34.2 billion, while funds under management were $3.2 billion.
Rival licensees, such as Centrepoint Alliance and WT Financial, have stated in their financial results over the last few weeks that they are looking to gain advisers who are switching amid the ongoing M&A activity in the market.
