SFG Australia has reported a 20 per cent dip in net profit after tax (NPAT) for the first half of the financial year, which was mostly driven by the group's recent mergers and acquisitions.
SFG released its half-yearly results to the Australian Securities Exchange, showing a $2.9 million decrease in NPAT to $10.6 million.
This was driven by the anomaly of the impact of the Rights to Future Income benefit which arose from the Snowball/Shadforth merger, and which was subsequently reversed in the second half of the 2012 financial year, the group said.
However, the group pointed to its underlying net profit growth of 14 per cent to $15.5 million, which excludes the impact of one-off acquisition costs.
SFG managing director Tony Fenning told Money Management the company was happy with the result and that it is continuing its growth strategy.
The group recently announced a $32.2 million acquisition of wealth management and accounting firm Lachlan Partners, also revealing it was in merger talks with WHK.
Fenning said SFG had divided its strategy into two parts.
"One is the organic business strategy where the core business of Shadforth, Lachlan and Outlook is growing and expanding over time; we're also doing tuck-in acquisitions selectively for that business — smaller acquisitions that we've added."
SFG Australia also has big plans for its Actuate Advice Solutions offering for advisers, which involves a business partnership model for dealer groups and financial planning practices.
"We've also started looking again at the post-Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) dealer group market and we think that's an opportunity," Fenning said.
"We launched Actuate and we're doing market testing on that, but we want to alert people to our interest in starting to recruit adviser groups in there."
