You’re closer to your business than anyone. But do you wonder if you may be too close? Could you be missing new opportunities to grow or ways to improve the way you currently work?
For generations, we’ve helped business owners and managers build stronger, more profitable businesses. We take the time to understand your business and draw on our wide range of expertise to provide fresh insights and straight-forward guidance for the difficult decisions you face.
Through careful planning and strategy, we can help you build a more successful business and turn that success into enduring wealth to safeguard the future of those you care about.
With our specialised business advisory firm, Fordham Business Advisors, we bring together everything you need to achieve your business and personal financial goals. Our services include, business advisory services, cash flow management, tax and accounting, investment management (across all asset classes), superannuation, insurance, property management, estate planning and philanthropy.
Importantly, we can help you untangle your personal and business assets and develop a long-term plan for your business succession, so when the time comes to step back from work, you’re ready.
Of course, managing a business is just one part of your life. That’s why we take the time to understand your personal financial goals together with your business goals to create a complete, integrated financial roadmap that protects and grows your wealth.
Your financial goals
Live more. Work Less.
A good financial plan creates more than long-term wealth – it also gives you more time. Time to spend with your family, on your hobbies or creating life-long memories.
We help you develop the plan that gives you the financial control you need to successfully run your business and have more time to spend on your other priorities in life.
We have a wide breadth of services and specialists available under one roof – from business advisory services to investments, insurance and self-managed super funds. This lets us create an integrated financial plan for you that simplifies wealth generation and saves you time.
A family owned business
Family owned businesses tend to do better than non-family owned businesses. They generate more revenue, have higher profitability and have less debt than non-family owned businesses1. Driving their success is often a sense of trust, unified vision and the long-term focus inherent in families. Knowing how and when to bring the next generation into running your business isn’t easy and the fact is, second and third-generation businesses can often fail. The key reason is because siblings have competing priorities and are unable to manage their new responsibilities.
Whether you’re still hands on or preparing to pass on the business, we can help you create a shared vision for your family business, clarify roles and establish standards of performance to protect and grow the business.
Protect the business you’ve built
While you can’t predict the future, you can prepare for it. Your insurance is there to protect your business when the unexpected happens. But isn’t it nice to know your personal and business assets are also protected against other events, such as marriage or divorce, for you or your children?
We can give you peace of mind by putting in place the right legal and financial structures to make sure your assets and wealth stay in the family.
Separate your business and personal wealth
Like many business owners, you’ve probably invested a lot of your personal wealth into your business. So much so, it may be difficult to separate your personal assets from your business assets – or even fully recognise the difference.
Day-to-day, this may not seem important. Over time though – and particularly when the time comes to step away from your business – complicated asset structures can harm your personal wealth and leave you with less in retirement. Appropriately separated and managed assets can also help you lower your tax bill and your personal liability while running the business.
Business succession planning
Given what you’ve put in, don’t you deserve the best possible outcome when you exit your business? A well-considered business succession plan can help protect your interests and help whoever takes over enjoy a smooth transition.
However, making the right choices for a succession plan isn’t as simple as it may sound. Consider this - would you be able to make a well-informed decision if you received an offer to buy your business today?
In fact, understanding your business’ true worth and preparing to pass it on is a complex, multi-discipline process, which leaves the question – how can you be sure you’re covering all your bases?
CLIENT Stories
APPROACHING A CENTURY
Where are you on your journey?
Our clients are all very different. They work in different industries, are at different stages of business growth and have different goals and dreams. But they have one thing in common – whatever stage they are at on their wealth journey, they can benefit from a partner they can trust to protect and grow their wealth.
The Perpetual Private and Fordham integrated service for business owners work with you to create a comprehensive financial strategy for your business and personal financial goals - Our strategies are designed to protect, then grow your wealth over time.
If you’re planning to start a business – or have recently started one – having the right partner to provide advice and services can make all the difference.
Strategic business planning
Start your business on the right foot. We can help with a comprehensive competitor analysis, the optimal way to raise capital, and put in place the right management and tax structures that sets your business up for growth.
Tax and accounting
Tax obligations go hand in hand with running a business. Many businesspeople pay more tax than they need to. This isn’t surprising, as finding the right strategy to effectively manage your tax bill can be complex and time-consuming.
We can advise on the optimal way to buy and sell assets for tax and balance sheet optimisation, and the right structures to minimise tax liability – all as part of a flexible, legal tax strategy that reduces your paperwork, compliance burden, tax bill and headaches!
We also take care of the important but time-consuming activities, including compliance and reporting obligations.
With a long history of supporting businesses through times of economic crisis, such as the GFC, we have the experience and expertise to help your business prepare a budget for uncertain economic times.
Business structure advice
As well as appropriate tax structures, we can also advise on ways to improve profitability, simplify your administration and manage people and remuneration.
We can also help you put in the business structures and plans to emerge with confidence from the current economic downturn, as well as establish remuneration strategies that help you attract and retain your most important business assets – your people.
Superannuation
Super is the most tax-effective way to build your wealth for the future. We will help you find the right platform for your super, including setting up a self-managed super fund where your super assets may also support your business growth. We also work with you on an optimum contribution strategy to maximise your super balance and keep you up to date with constantly changing rules for superannuation.
Wealth and business protection
Our insurance strategies encompass life insurance, total and permanent disability, trauma insurance and income protection. Just as importantly, we tailor those insurances to be tax-effective, to work effectively together and to integrate with your investment and superannuation strategies.
We’ll also make sure the insurance you need to protect your business is not overlooked, as well as some risk and compliance steps you may not have considered, such as information and data security.
If you have insurance in place, we’ll help you review your cover to see if it’s right for you and make sure you know what you’re getting for your premiums.
Our advisers have years of experience helping business owners and managers grow and protect their companies. We understand typical business paths (and pitfalls) and can advise on the right time to make a change. We also ensure your business growth plan is aligned with your personal wealth plan, protecting your assets and the future of those you care about.
Profit improvement
It’s a great feeling to run a profitable business. But has your business gone as far as it can? What more can you do to grow your business? We have the experience to investigate and measure your true business performance, uncover areas for improvement and implement a strategic plan with specific actions for success.
Our experience working with privately owned businesses means we can help you avoid many of the common pitfalls we see with new businesses. We can also make sure your business has in place the right plans and structures it needs to continue growing.
Mergers and acquisitions
It’s a dream of many business owners to take over their competitors on the road to success. But is it always a good idea – and what are the best ways to do it? We can help identify and value your competitors as well as advise on the best financing options. This includes working with your company to unlock synergies and efficiencies and uncover genuine cost savings to make your acquisition more profitable.
If somebody approached you today with an offer to buy your business – or sell you theirs – could you make a well-informed decision? To help you understand what’s involved, we look at the differences in how transactions are structured and structures that may suit you better as a buyer or a seller.
Managing debt
Whether you’re starting out, expanding or buying new equipment, debt will play an important part in growing your business. But what is the best way to manage your debt?
We’re always careful to build debt management into your financial plan. We can also help you find the right loan, consolidate and refinance high-cost debt, and structure repayments in a way that lets you grow your business without sacrificing the lifestyle you’ve earned.
When organising your finances and banking, diversification can also be vital. We look at how you can avoid risks by working with different financial institutions.
Investment advice and management
Should I invest more in my business? What about shares or super? How about my property?
There’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. Just what’s right for you. You may want more income, maybe you’d like to grow the value of your business, or simply protect your nest egg.
With a deep understanding of where you are now, what you want for yourself and your family, your attitudes to investing, risk and much more, we’ll carefully design an investment strategy that is aligned to your goals.
There are a range of options available to you when the time comes to step away from your business, each suited to a different set of circumstances. Here are some of the services we offer to help you get the best outcome when you sell or exit your business, and prepare for your life after work:
Transition to retirement
Highly ambitious individuals don’t work one day and retire the next. However, your priorities will change as you move through your career. As you begin to wind down your working hours and step back from the day-to-day of running your business, you might want to supplement your income with a pension from your super to maintain your income. If you’re eligible, we can put in place a transition to retirement strategy that lets you do just this.
Succession planning or sale?
When considering how to exit your business, your first big decision could be whether you want to sell your business or set up a succession plan. Either way takes careful planning and preparation. We can advise you on what type of ownership transfer will give you the best return as well as help with tax management, timing of the sale and even ways to retain equity for the future.
There’s a lot to think about if you’re planning on selling your business – including making sure the buyer knows what they’re getting. We can help you prepare what’s required so prospective purchasers can do their due diligence.
Estate planning
When you’re no longer there to help the people and causes closest to you, that job passes to the legal and financial structures you create. A structured will and estate plan that covers all the bases – business succession planning, asset protection, powers of attorney and trust structures are how you extend a helping hand long after you’ve gone. Our job is to help you do that as easily, efficiently and fairly as possible.
We can advise on estate planning and, when necessary, connect you with our trusted legal partners to put in place your enduring legacy.
Together, we can also help your family avoid the added complexities in settling your estate without a will.
Our financial advisers – in their own words
“I love that my clients work across many different industries and they all have different financial and personal goals. I enjoy learning about my clients’ business as well as their family and I’ve developed really strong, long-term relationships with my clients. A trusted adviser who really understands their client is so important to achieving their business and personal wealth goals!” - Sharon Parker, Lead Partner, Fordham Group, VIC
“A rich and rewarding personal and family life is as important as running a successful business. I work with business owners to transfer their success in business into achieving their family’s wealth and personal goals. We help our clients – many of whom are multi-generational Perpetual clients – achieve a greater sense of purpose by partnering with them to develop a clear plan for running a business and for life after work by aligning their wealth and personal priorities.” – Mark Vignaroli, Senior Financial Adviser, Perpetual Private, VIC
Meet the team
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Ed Ryan
Partner, Private Clients VIC
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Ed is a Partner and trusted wealth adviser to families and private business owners.
Ed has over 16 years’ experience in the financial services industry and believes careful planning, stewardship and patience are the keys to protecting and growing family wealth.
Ed's areas of specialisation include:
- Investment management and asset allocation advice.
- Inter-generational family wealth planning and inheritance advice.
- Retirement planning.
- Family philanthropy advice.
Ed is a Certified Financial Planner and holds a Bachelor of Business (Economics and Finance), Bachelor of Laws, and a Graduate Diploma of Financial Planning.
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Andrew Parker
Partner, Private Clients SA
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Andrew is the Partner of SA’s Not For Profit division.
With over 32 years experience, Andrew specialises in advice to large complex organisations, family offices, not-for-profit clients and philanthropic trusts. He has a deep understanding of the unique needs and strategic objectives of not-for-profit organisations and helps his clients implement best practice investment policies. Andrew also connects clients to other parts of the Perpetual business, including Philanthropic services.
Prior to joining Perpetual, Andrew held senior adviser roles within commercial and private banking based in Adelaide for the last 9 years. Andrew has also held senior manager roles in institutional banking at JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland in Tokyo, Singapore, London, New York and Sydney over a period of 20 years.
Andrew has a Bachelor of Business (Finance), Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning, is an accredited Self- Managed Super Fund adviser (SMSFA) and speaks several languages.
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Chris Marshall
Partner, Private Clients WA
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Chris is a Partner in Perpetual Private’s Western Australian office. He specialises in securing the financial futures of successful Australians.
In 2019, Chis was ranked number 29 in the influential Barron’s Top 50 Financial Advisers in Australia.
With over 25 years’ experience, Chris is an expert in looking after the complex advice and strategic wealth requirements of High Net Worth clients and their families. Chris also has a deep understanding of self-managed super funds and how to maximise super for enduring financial security in retirement.
Chris also looks after Health & Personal Injury clients, managing their Personal Injury Compensation Trusts to provide a better quality of life, medical care and peace of mind knowing a compensation payment will last long into the future.
Chris also helps clients establish Philanthropic Trusts to give strategically to charities by taking into account taxation and other factors in their giving.
Chris is a qualified Certified Financial Planner ® or CFP ® and holds a Diploma of Financial Planning from Deakin University. He has also completed an Advanced Management Program from the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) and is an Affiliate of AIM.
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Sharon Parker
Lead Partner
MelbourneB Bus (Acc), CA-
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Sharon assists business owner clients across a broad range of industries, helping them to navigate their personal and business wealth journey and weigh up important decisions along the way. She has broad experience in taxation and business with particular expertise in complex tax advice and structuring, planning for succession and retirement and dealing with complex family and community issues.
In addition to working with business owners, Sharon is passionate about leading Fordham’s Indigenous Consulting Team, which is part of Perpetual’s broader service offering to Aboriginal communities. This team provides Executive Office and consulting services to communities across Australia.
Clients enjoy Sharon’s attentiveness, responsiveness, her ability to listen, and to provide targeted and practical advice. She is exceptionally talented at developing strong, long-term relationships, and is known for her ability to communicate complex issues in a way that is easy to understand.
Industry specialisation: Property & Construction, Retail, Native Title
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Richard Van Der Merwe
Lead Partner
MelbourneBBus FCA FBA Specialist Accredited Adviser.-
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Commenced with Fordham in 1984 as a graduate and progressed to partner level in 1997
Richard’s diverse background equips him to manage the varied needs of his large portfolio of private business clients; from valuations and sales, to taxation and superannuation planning. He has had significant exposure to capital markets, including purchase and acquisition, mergers, valuations, capital raisings, finance and sale of business. He has also been heavily involved in helping clients with succession planning, including exiting via the sale of their business.
Richard has a depth of experience in helping clients manage the transition of their wealth from the business to life beyond the business, including the setup of a family office and is a trusted adviser to families over multiple generations.
Responsible, insightful and understanding, Richard is an important asset to Fordham and his clients.
Industry specialisation: Private businesses, their owners and wealthy family’s.
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Frank Genobile
Lead Partner
MelbourneBBus, CA, DFS (FP)-
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Frank’s passion is the motor industry and while at Fordham he has overseen significant growth in our motor dealer client base. He has a deep understanding of the workings of a dealership - probably one of the toughest environments in which to make a profit.
During his time at Fordham, Frank has developed significant expertise in valuations, mergers and acquisitions, purchase and sale of businesses and in leading negotiations. He is also well practiced in strategic planning in areas including succession, management and business structuring. He runs regular monthly meetings with several of his major clients and facilitates profit improvement meetings for one of Australia’s leading automotive distributors.
Frank’s colleagues and clients rely on his intimate understanding of business and his proven ability to identify and solve problems. He has used this to develop a range of unique products, in collaboration with his team, to help clients run their businesses more successfully. Many of these have now become standard operating tools for Fordham, including the Dealership Diagnostic and the Profit Improvement Program.
Industry specialisation: Motor Dealer Services
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Michael Sutherland
Lead Partner
MelbourneB Bus(Acc), CA, CTA, FBA, RG124-
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Michael joined Fordham in 2001 and is now the lead partner of a team of 30 with clients in Property & Construction, Retail/Ragtrade, Transport, Manufacturing and Franchising. He started his career in 1991 with one of the Big Four accounting firms and joined Fordham 10 years later to focus specifically on medium-sized, privately-owned businesses.
As a Chartered Tax Advisor with a wealth of experience in corporate advisory, as well as private businesses, Michael brings this unique perspective to help his clients’ businesses grow and overcome adversity. He helps clients across the broad range of business and personal issues they face including arranging external financing, modelling/forecasting, reporting, shareholder issues, structuring and valuations.
In this role Michael enjoys undertaking strategic planning for his clients and often participates as Board Chair. He runs executive leadership team meetings focused on driving accountability and meaningful improvements to operational performance. He is a regular presenter and author of industry articles for the building and property development sector, as well as Ragtrade industry segments. When not at work, he is chauffeuring four daughters to school, rep basketball and football.
Industry specialisation: Property & Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Transport, Franchising
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Why Perpetual & Fordham
WE UNDERSTAND BUSINESS OWNERS
We understand business owners – the long hours, the need to be an ‘expert’ in so many areas, the challenge of managing staff and the constant pressure to achieve entrepreneurial success. We also recognise that running your business is just one part of your life. You have a family to look after and life-long memories to create.
Perpetual and our business advisory firm, Fordham, bring together everything you need to manage and grow your business, and achieve your personal financial goals, in one integrated financial strategy.
Our services range from the day to day tax and accounting, through to business strategy, business optimisation and operational improvement. Through Perpetual we provide comprehensive financial and superannuation advice, investment and asset management as well as trust management to safeguard the future of those you care about.
Here are just some of the industries where our clients work in:
- Property & construction services
- Motor dealer services
- Retail
- Franchising
- Transport
- Not-for-profit
- Native title
- Property trusts
EARNING YOUR TRUST
Perpetual is an ASX-listed, diversified financial services company which has been serving Australians since 1886 when it was established as a trustee company by a group of businessmen including Sir Edmund Barton, later to be Australia’s first Prime Minister.
In 2009, Fordham Group joined the Perpetual business. As a specialist part of Perpetual, Fordham is proud to be part of an organisation that has been helping businesses and individuals for more than 130 years. Together, we pride ourselves on our long-standing client relationships – some of which span many generations.
For over 60 years, the Fordham service to clients is built on the values of:
- Trust
- Consistently deliver
- Raise the bar
- Succeed together
These values guide how we work with you, how we treat our teams and our business partners and the role we play in the community.
OUR INVESTMENT PHILOSOPHY
Our investment philosophy is to protect and grow your wealth by minimising risk without sacrificing your expected returns. To achieve this, we diversify risk across asset classes, within asset classes, across countries and fund managers.
We take a long-term approach to investing because we believe quality investments yield benefits in the long run. Our advisers and investment specialists have a high duty of care in developing portfolios and ensuring Perpetual’s stringent quality investment filters are met.
Our Investment Management page has more in-depth information and insights.
TAKE YOUR FIRST STEP - CONTACT US ON 1800 631 381
Or please submit the form below and a specialist adviser will contact you. 97%* of Perpetual Private clients are happy with the quality of their financial advice. *Perpetual Net Promoter Score Survey (research conducted by Woolcott Research).
