Centrepoint Alliance acquires two advice firms

Centrepoint Alliance will acquire Queensland financial advice practices Cairns Wealth and Pinnacle Wealth for $3 million from Astute Financial Management.

The two practices, which operate within the Astute network, will add three advisers to Centrepoint, as well as add $1.5 million to revenue.

Advisers from Cairns Wealth will operate from Astute premises in Cairns, while Pinnacle Wealth advisers will move to Centrepoint's Brisbane office.

Completion is expected to finalise July 1 subject to standard regulatory approvals and adviser transitions.

Astute is Centrepoint's key referral and distribution partner. The new deal further builds on Centrepoint's existing partnership since the sale of its lending solutions business to Astute that finalised in March.

Under that agreement, Centrepoint retains the lending-as-a-service (LaaS) business, credit licence, and salaried brokers so that advisers continue to access integrated lending solutions without operating a sub-scale aggregator. This means retaining the back-book revenue.

The ASX-listed firm also retained all the financial advice licence margin that Astute currently derives from Astute-aligned advisers operating under Centrepoint's AFSL.

Centrepoint now operates five core business lines: licensee services, financial advice, investments, platforms and lending.

Chief executive John Shuttleworth said the new deals align with the group's disciplined capital deployment framework and will strengthen its distribution footprint.

"Importantly, they strengthen our partnership with Astute, complete our Queensland regional footprint and are expected to deliver high-quality, recurring earnings and immediate earnings contribution," he said.

"We remain focused on executing our growth strategy through acquisitions, adviser recruitment and expansion of our platform and investments businesses."

The transaction will be funded via a $10 million acquisition facility from National Australia Bank, which will provide capacity to pursue further acquisitions.

Also based in Queensland, Astute is a lending aggregator focused on broker support and lender relationships with more than 500 brokers nationally.