The potential merger of Total Financial Solutions Australia (TFSA) with a large dealer group has entered the closing stages, however TFSA is yet to name the preferred candidate.
While industry rumours have pointed to the likelihood of Count Financial as a serious contender, the dealer group's head, Marianne Perkovic, was unavailable for comment.
TFSA chief executive Philip Aris said he was currently not in a position to deny or confirm Count as the frontrunner.
"At this stage we are in merger talks with a larger group which is quite a financially sound, very well respected group within the industry," Aris told InvestorDaily.
"We're at that critical position where we're trying to bed everything down so we're under strict confidentiality on both sides."
TFSA expected to make an official announcement on the merger by the end of the first quarter, Aris said.
"To get this merger deal across the line you need to get 75 per cent approval from shareholders and we're currently sitting at a 90 per cent approval rate," he said.
Australian Financial Services (AFS) chief executive Peter Daly told InvestorDaily his dealer group attempted to pursue merger talks with TFSA as far back as 18 months ago and also as recently as October 2008.
However, TFSA's refusal to enter merger talks with AFS has since prompted the dealer group to actively target and recruit TFSA's practices.
"TFSA rejected our offer. We understand that they are considering an offer from Count," Daly said.
"So we thought: 'Well if they don't want to talk to us we'll just go in and selectively pick their best practices'."
AFS had already recruited seven of TFSA's larger practices since early December 2008 and planned to add another 15 by March this year, Daly said.
