Financial planning group Gold Financial (Gold) plans to double its adviser numbers in the next 12 months through organic growth.
The Melbourne-based group already has 25 advisers and plans to have 50 by June 2009.
Since November, Gold has recruited six new advisers in Victoria and Western Australia.
"It is organic growth in terms of meeting with people that we know in the industry and trying to get them to move across," Gold Financial managing director Peter Storey told InvestorDaily.
"We have around 25 advisers but we don't want anymore than 50. We think 50 is enough. We are very selective in the type of advisers that we actually want."
Storey said the group expects to hire around 35 advisers by mid-year, with the remainder recruited by next June.
He said the increase in adviser numbers will also mean a jump in client numbers.
"Gold is essentially owned by the advisers, so that anybody who joins Gold, becomes a shareholder and so, in a sense, by owning the dealer group has ownership of their clients," Storey said.
He said Gold was working on building strategic partnerships with the key product providers, with CommInsure, Tower, Asteron, ING Australia and Zurich in its sights.
"Rather than dissipate the production of the group across a wide range of product providers, it's more efficient to concentrate your efforts on the major product providers," Storey said.
Storey and co- founding adviser Bernie Toohey started Gold Financial two and a half years ago.
