Dealer group Premium Wealth Management has signed a new unnamed member firm that brings around $300 million in funds under management to its advisory network.
Formerly a self-licensed firm, the practice has around 150 staff across offices in Newcastle, Sydney and Brisbane.
The firm was in the process of communicating the move to its clients and had opted to join Premium due to the dealer group being both accounting and financial planning orientated, Premium executive director Michael Byrnes said.
“The firm found our fee and cost structures very appealing and it was also attracted to our fairly boutique size, which allows for a lot of interaction between member firms,” Byrnes said.
“We currently have around 20 practices under the Premium brand but would like to grow that number to around 30 by 2012 and to around 50 by 2015.
“Our member firms are all currently based in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, so we would like to concentrate on expanding our geographic footprint as well. We’re already in talks with firms in Western Australia and we will be looking at other state-based opportunities also.”
He said Premium was looking for mature firms with a minimum of $20 million in funds under advice and it was preferable, but not mandatory, that they offered financial planning as well as accounting services.
Meanwhile, Premium is yet to reveal the structure of its management team following the departure of chief executive Chris Saunders.
Earlier this year, Premium made Saunders’ position as CEO redundant.
He has since been appointed head of financial planning at Wilson HTM Investment Group.
