Perpetual plans to continue expanding its private wealth business by acquiring additional complementary advisory firms specialising in the high net worth (HNW) market.
"We do have further expansion plans and are researching the market and talking to a number of different participants about joining us," Perpetual private wealth group executive John Nesbitt said.
"We're looking at firms that provide advice to HNW clients and particularly those that provide holistic advice - so a broad cross-section of advice and services to their clients."
Nesbitt would not confirm the number of practices Perpetual was currently in talks with, although he said the firms were based in all of the major capital cities.
"We're in the process of talking to different organisations and we're at different stages with several organisations in various cities. They're organisations that do provide broad strategic advice to their clients and have a wide value proposition," he said.
"I'm hoping to close additional acquisitions by the end of the financial year but I haven't put a number on it yet. We're quite well progressed on a small number of additional ones that we're looking for."
Last month, Perpetual announced the acquisition of privately-owned Sydney firm Grosvenor Financial Services. It purchased Sydney-based advisory practice Financial Pursuit in April 2009 and acquired Adelaide-based advisory business Argosy in January 2008.
Perpetual had 85 financial advisers around Australia who provided services to around 1.5 per cent of the overall HNW market, Nesbitt said.
