Sydney advice firms merge to create aged care specialist

Financial advice firms Priority Advisory Group and Wise Planners are to merge to create a multi-disciplinary professional services firm in Sydney.

The two firms, both backed by accounting and advisory group AZ NGA, will form a combined firm offering wealth management, retirement planning, aged care, insurance and workplace financial advice. 

It will operate under the Priority Advisory Group brand with 12 financial advisers. 

Zvi Teichtahl, chief executive of Priority, said: “This strategic partnership is a key step towards our joint vision to create a thriving professional financial services hub on the north shore of Sydney.

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“We have clients all over Sydney and Australia, but most of our clients and referral partners are based on the north shore, where there is a lot of residential property development, retirement villages and aged care facilities.

“Aged care advice is one of the fastest growing areas of our business and there is also strong demand for life risk insurance advice, given the large number of professionals and young families buying apartments in the area. The group’s core personal and family wealth business will also be strengthened with this merger.”

Research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics earlier this week found 41 per cent of people living in NSW are retirees while the average superannuation balance in Sydney is $175,000, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds Australia.

“There is an increasing realisation that running a highly efficient, profitable advice firm requires meaningful scale because scale enables businesses to drive cost savings, spread fixed and variable costs over a larger number of clients, and increase profit margins,” Paul Barrett, chief executive of AZ NGA, said.

There have been several AZ NGA movements during the year, including the acquisition of Sydney-based financial advice firm Foster Raffan iPlan in July and of a strategic stake in the Victorian accounting and advisory firm McLean Delmo Bentleys in February.

It also announced a strategic partnership with Melbourne-based accounting and advisory business, Rose Partners, in May, which focuses on advice for healthcare professionals. Through the group’s Rose Health division, it assists healthcare professionals looking to buy, sell or finance, including due diligence, valuations and transaction support. 

Last August 2022, it partnered with national financial advisory group Invest Blue to invest in the Philippines-based paraplanning business, Virtual Business Partners.