Adelaide accounting firm merges with private wealth giant
Mutual Trust has announced its merger with a specialist private advisory firm in the Adelaide CBD, which is set to grow the interstate giant’s presence in the South Australian wealth market.
Mutual Trust today announced its merger with Flinders Street-headquartered CMS Private Advisory, a bespoke accounting, financial and business advisory service.
CMS Private Advisory, founded in 1997, will take on the Mutual Trust name, giving the new parent company access to its clients and services the SA-based business offers locally and in New South Wales. The firm has about 20 staff and four directors including Ian McFarlane, Jim Selth, Marc Boyer and Thrity Anthon.
Mutual Trust said it noticed a “significant uptick in demand for integrated family office services” and had grown its Adelaide clients and revenue more than threefold since the 100-year-old company established an Adelaide presence in mid-2019.
Mutual Trust head of South Australia Brad Simmons said that trend would only continue.
“As families face the challenges of intergenerational wealth, such as the sale of a long-held family business, the unbundling of jointly owned family wealth, or the death of a family patriarch or matriarch, clients are turning to us as experts in this field, to help solve more complex problems, beyond what they can get from their stockbroker or suburban accountant,” Simmons said.
It follows Mutual Trust’s 2021 merger of Adelaide-based tax and accounting boutique Reynolds Advisory.
“As we continue to grow, we are reinvesting in our local client services team,” Simmons said.
“Mergers with like-minded firms such as Reynolds Advisory and CMS are helping to build broader and deeper team capabilities more quickly, for the benefit of our clients.”
Mutual Trust CEO and managing partner Phil Harkness said there were “great synergies between Mutual Trust and CMS, with both firms having proud heritages of helping families, businesses and trusts manage their affairs across generations”.
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“This merger will complement and strengthen the scale and breadth of services CMS and Mutual Trust can deliver in Adelaide and Sydney, with the key objective of helping families uncover what matters most across all aspects of their wealth and guiding them to define their purpose of wealth,” Harkness said.
“It is our purpose-driven approach that’s enabled Mutual Trust to forge its unique and niche market position of serving hundreds of Australia’s wealthiest families.
“Mutual Trust is entering its next and most significant growth phase. The CMS merger will be our fifth and propels our standing in our key growth markets of Adelaide and Sydney. Furthermore, we have ambitious plans to extend our national footprint further.”
