Australian Financial Services Group (AFS) has delayed its plans for an initial public offering (IPO).

The group had initially planned to seek a listing in the first quarter of 2011, but the market downturn has affected the group's performance.

The group will now miss an internally set earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) target, which it wanted to achieve before initiating an IPO, AFS managing director Peter Daly said.

"This will postpone a listing until at least the fourth quarter of 2012/first quarter of 2013," Daly said.

AFS said last week it had achieved a pre-tax profit growth of 25 per cent or $2 million over the six-month period ending 31 December 2008, without specifying the exact profit figure.

Over the full year it expects a pretax profit growth of 10 per cent, implying a slowdown in the second half of the year.

"The first half of the year is traditionally a better period for us [than the second half]," Daly said. "I've just been very conservative."

Growth will be partly driven by acquisitions and the group expects to take over 20 practices annually.

It is targeting the practices of Total Financial Solutions Australia (TFSA) and has added seven so far. "We expect to have about 10 to 15 TFSA practices by 31 March," Daly said.

The acquired practices had between $400,000 to $500,000 in gross annual income.

Over the 2008 calendar year AFS added 24 practices, which brought 43 new financial planners to the group.