Speaking to InvestorDaily sister publication AccountantsDaily, Mr Paule said his top priority is to boost Findex’s wealth management offering.
“It’s where our heritage is and our business has grown exponentially over the last decade in that space so I think we can add some value immediately there,” he said.
Mr Paule’s ambition is to create a fair-priced “family office” service, accessible to more mainstream business owners and entrepreneurs, as opposed to the high-net-wealth family who traditionally have been the only ones able to afford this type of service.
“The family office has been the domain of wealthy people because it has generally only been those people who have been able to afford the specialist skills required to take a big picture view of their affairs,” he said.
“It’s our view that with our technology and our know-how and the skills that we have, we can actually bring the cost of that down a lot to suit more mainstream business owners and entrepreneurs who may not be in a position to be able to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to get that type of service but may well be prepared to pay $20,000.”
On the accounting front, Mr Paule said he is currently in negotiations with at least three practices to boost the firm’s presence in a number of centres where he feels the firm is currently under-represented.
“We have already started discussions with a number of people, both in the city and regional areas, to add some scale where we do need to beef the firm up.
“Right at the moment we are in negotiations to add some scale to our Melbourne office because we feel that it is undersized for a major market.
“We want to remain a large, full-service accounting business that can compete hard in the market across all sectors and demographics and across all service lines,” Mr Paule said.
