Succession plans, M&A drive practice market shifts

Adviser Ratings’ Q3 2025 Musical Chairs report has noted a shift in the advice practice landscape as M&A activity continues to tick up and firms enact succession plans.

According to the industry report, an ongoing move away from banks, diversified and limited licensees has seen privately owned licensees with 10 or less advisers take over as the largest adviser segment, capturing 4,397 (28.5 per cent) of the 15,447 advisers registered as at 30 September.

This marks a slight tilt back after large privately owned licensees with more than 100 advisers only just came out on top in 2024 with a difference of 24 individuals. As of Q3, privately owned licensees with 10 or less advisers now surpass these licensees by more than 200 advisers.

While the difference is still small, the report noted that this along with the slight decline in the overall number of practices – dropping by just 10 since Q2 to sit at 5,934 – are a result of ongoing advice consolidation as businesses seek out M&A opportunities while a stagnated profession makes organic growth harder.

“We are beginning to see clear signs of an M&A uptick across ‘practice land’, as firms pursue scale, succession solutions, and operational efficiencies. This activity is being echoed at a data level, with ARdata recording a record number of requests from M&A players seeking industry assessments and granular practice-level insights to support due diligence and valuation analysis,” the report said.

Released in October, Morgan Stanley’s The race for relevance fuelling M&A report, produced with consultancy Oliver Wyman, found there have been more than 200 significant wealth and asset management M&A transactions per year since 2022, occurring at twice the pace of the preceding decade.

With this expected to continue, the report suggested that up to one in five (20 per cent) of wealth and asset managers are set to be acquired by 2029.

The M&A growth comes as the predicted loss of advisers set to come at the end of this year, acting as a trigger for practice succession plans as Padua Wealth Data suggested that a large portion of those who exit in the coming months will likely be older, more experienced professionals who have decided not to go back to study in order to meet the new education standards.  

While this quarter saw the fewest advisers exit since 2019, some 195 still left the profession, including 44 practice directors, which the report said could be “signalling early indicators of leadership and ownership changes across the advice landscape”.

The report added: “Key themes defining the quarter include a qualitative shift in the adviser population, as regulatory pressures push some practitioners out while improved industry economics pull experienced talent back in. The licensee landscape is polarising between a drive for scale and a desire for autonomy, creating distinct pathways for advice practices.  

Focusing on specific licensee movements, Fortnum Private Wealth was hit the hardest in Q3 with a net loss of 22 advisers, though this is markedly lower than the blow SMSF Advisers Network took in Q2 which saw a net loss of 63.  

However, Fortnum Advice saw the most quarterly growth with a net gain of 24 advisers following the strategic separation of Fortnum Wealth and Fortnum Advice, “signalling the continued realignment of the group’s licensing structure and the resulting adviser redistribution”.  

Meanwhile, Chartered Financial Planning was tied for second place with a net loss of eight advisers, falling in line with Interprac Financial Planning, which has recently seen itself in hot water with ASIC.  

Just last week, the regulator launched legal action in the Federal court against both Interprac and SQM Research over alleged failures related to the Shield and First Guardian fund collapses.  

At the other end of the spectrum, Synchron Advice saw a net gain of 15 advisers, followed by Guideway Financial Services with 12 and Lifespan Financial Planning, which saw a net gain of 8, almost turning around its loss of 11 in Q2.  

The overall shift in the adviser landscape, the report suggested, could be a result of a structural repositioning within the advice ecosystem as advisers seek “strong alignment with licensee philosophy, ownership, or support models”.