CountPlus expands SMSF services with new acquisition
CountPlus has announced the $9 million acquisition of Accurium from Challenger to expand its core service delivery to accounting firms and self-managed super funds (SMSFs) across Australia.
Under the terms of the deal, CountPlus would hold an 85% shareholding in Accurium with key management personnel holding 15%. Douglas McBirnie would become managing director of Accurium and all current serving team members would be retained by the business.
Matthew Rowe, CountPlus chief executive and managing director, said the firm had a strong platform to leverage the CountPlus competitive advantage within the accounting and SMSF administration service sector in Australia.
The move followed an earlier announcement of a 51% acquisition of Wealth Axis, a paraplanning, technology and administration services business and would be the second transaction under the firm’s ‘core-related’ strategy.
“Accurium sits naturally within our network and has a subscriber base of some 3,000 accounting firms and 11,000 SMSF professionals who require the efficiencies of online, automated actuarial certification and supplementary education and technical services,” Rowe said.
“The Accurium business is an online service provider, is highly automated, using proprietary actuarial calculators. It is technology-enabled with an ability to scale up as an ageing population transition their SMSF’s to retirement phase. Accurium estimates the current addressable market for SMSF Actuarial certificates is circa 140,000 funds.”
AUTHOR
Oksana Patron
Recommended for you
A quarter of advisers who commenced on the FAR within the last two years have already switched licensees or practices, adding validity to practice owners’ professional year (PY) concerns.
Integrated wealth and financial services group Rethink has launched a financial planning arm called Rethink Wealth to expand beyond property investing and into holistic wealth management.
While adviser numbers continue to slowly creep back up, the latest Wealth Data analysis reveals they would actually be in the green for the calendar year if it weren’t for so many losses in the limited advice space.
Iress has appointed a chief AI officer to spearhead the fintech’s strategic focus on AI, with chief executive Marcus Price describing how the technology opens the doors to a “new frontier for wealth advice”.
