Madison Financial Group parent company Pharos Group has acquired equity stakes in three financial planning practices, including two full takeovers.

The acquisitions, which were made through its subsidiary, Alliance Equity Partners, involve more than $250 million in funds under advice (FUA). The group is also well under way with two other equity stakes that will take Alliance's FUA to more than $500 million by the end of the year.

Pharos has a number of other investment opportunities it is reviewing and plans to grow Alliance's FUA to more than $2 billion by the end of 2012.

The acquisitions mark the first equity purchases by the dealer group.

Up until now, Madison has been a confederation-style dealer group where practices had equity rights in the dealership but not the reverse.

Last month, Pharos bought Sydney-based advisory practice Planning Perspective, which specialises in the high net worth space.

It also bought an equity stake in ESV Strategic, the Sydney-based planning arm of accountancy firm ESV Chartered Accountants, and it took a 50 per cent stake in a multi-state financial planning business developed within general insurance brokerage firm Austcover.

The attraction to acquire the ESV stake was an agreement for an ongoing relationship with the accountancy business.

Pharos plans to merge the ESV planning business with Perspective to combine the best service offers of both.

The practice will be led by ESV principal adviser David Harvie.

"Being our first equity involvement and due to the criticality of getting the relationship and service offer right for ESV, we took our time identifying who would be right to run it and indeed leverage the opportunities," Pharos managing director Mark Perry said.

"David met all our criteria, he was known to us and he had a terrific solid reputation."

Pharos will also merge Austcover Corporate Advisory with the business of corporate superannuation and group insurance specialist Peter Mulligan.

According to Perry, corporate super and group life was a scale game now and even more so following the Future of Financial Advice reforms. 

"With Austcover we have a tremendous pipeline of referrals and in Peter we have tremendous skills. Bringing them together seemed ideal," he said.

Flowing out of the acquisition activity, Michael Drage, who started Perspective and who will maintain an advisory involvement at the firm, has been convinced to take on an executive role within Pharos, assisting founders Tony Hartley and Mark Perry.