Listed financial service firm Prime Financial Group (Prime) has doubled its number of planned equity stake acquisitions, with the group in talks with up to 40 businesses.
Prime chief executive Simon Madder confirmed the group's planned acquisition numbers had swelled to around 40 in the last few months. In August Madder told InvestorDaily that it was in discussions with up to 20 firms.
"It's been a pretty hectic time. Coming up to Christmas you endeavour to complete as many as you can. It will be interesting to see how to the December and January timeframe works out for us," he said.
"You don't expect to complete them all. You might complete 20 or 30 per cent of them, but there are definitely quite a few opportunities in the space that we're playing at."
While Madder could not comment on exact details of the firms, he does expect to complete a number of deals in the near term.
The increase level in acquisitions was not a bid to necessarily increase Prime's stake on the financial services market, nor was it about growing adviser numbers.
"We're not focused on the adviser numbers. We're more focused on the quality businesses that have a growth profile, with people who want to build businesses for the next 15 years," Madder said.
"Our standard equity model is the 50/50 equity structure that we run with, so in the key areas where we currently have operations we continue to focus there - whether its Perth, Sydney or Melbourne, Queensland or Tasmania."
Earlier this week Prime signed a deal with listed portfolio administration provider, Praemium as its preferred direct equities administration platform.
In October Prime announced it had taken a 50 per cent stake in two advisory and accounting firms, Strategic PBS, based in Tasmania, and Rundles Chartered Accountants, based in Victoria.
The combined firms have more than 2000 clients with assets of more than $100 million.
Prime has investments in 44 financial services and advisory businesses nationally, combining more than 200 staff and 31 financial advisers.
