February 18, 2020
Louis Diamond Quoted
By Ian Wenik
Focus Financial Partners is expanding down under.
The private equity backed financier of RIAs has added its first new partner firm of 2020: MEDIQ Financial Services, a wealth management firm based in Melbourne, Australia.
‘Australia appears to be a natural extension for Focus to extend its reach, as, similar to the US and Canada, there is a fragmented independent advice market and the entire sector is under intense regulatory pressures, which drives home the need for scale,’ said Louis Diamond, an executive vice president at advisor recruiting firm Diamond Consultants. ‘Additionally, on the US side, Focus has a more mature business with lots more competition from other private equity firms, standalone RIAs and roll-ups, so leveraging their capital and dealmaking expertise abroad where there is less competition and presumably lower prices makes sense.’
