Financial services firm Perpetual is considering adding financial advisers to its Private Wealth division over the next 12 months.
The group is currently engaged with a number of potential small acquisitions within the high net worth segment.
"I think another part of the organisation where you will see expenses increase is within Private Wealth," Perpetual chief executive David Deverall said yesterday.
"Firstly, as acquisitions come through you will see that appear, but obviously we'll try in the future to be as explicit as possible about the impact of acquisitions versus straight out organic growth.
"What you might also see in Private Wealth is a kick-up in our recruitment activity for financial advisers.
"We toned that down during the course of the 2009 year. It's always been an aim for us to grow organically, but in a year where no-one's investing money we really didn't want to be putting further investment into the recruitment of advisers in a very, very bearish market. So you might see that kick up over the course of the year."
His comments came after Perpetual announced underlying profit after tax slumped 51 per cent to $65.7 million in the year to 30 June.
Perpetual Private Wealth's profit before tax decreased by 37 per cent to $29.1 million in the same period.
The division's funds under advice slipped 12 per cent to $6.8 billion in the year to 30 June.
Perpetual Private Wealth had not and would not set a target on how many advisers it wanted, Deverall said.
"What I would say is that we currently have about 1.5 per cent share of an incredibly fragmented high net worth advisory market and so we have ambitions to increase that share substantially," he said.
Perpetual Private Wealth has 80 client-facing staff.
The group acquired privately-owned financial advisory practice Financial Pursuit in March.
