How Count Financial swelled the CountPlus bottom line
The CountPlus acquisition of Count Financial has proved positive for the company with the company reporting a strong first half.
It reported that profit was up more than 100% to $13.459 million, largely owed to the terms of its purchase of Count Financial from the Commonwealth Bank booked as a bargain purchase of $12.489 million. Minus the Count Financial factor, the company’s net profit after tax was $2.042 million – an increase of 7%.
However the CountPlus half-year results have also revealed the degree to which it has scaled back and imposed changes on Count Financial with the number of advisers decreasing from 380 in December to 2018 to 281 in December, last year, but will increase to 326 as “a select number” of Total Financial Solutions advisers join Count Financial. As well, the company revealed that the number of Count Financial member firms had dropped from 177 in December 2018 to 133 in December, 2019.
The company said the drop in adviser firms and advisers had been anticipated and was largely due to the changes in the regulatory environment and pricing models resulting in firms opting out of the financial services model.
CountPlus also made clear that Count Financial had been transitioning to a user-pays model since 1 December, last year, phasing out the old model under which costs for software, selected research tools and professional indemnity insurance were not recovered.
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