Global advice firm enters Sydney market

Having acquired Melbourne boutique Meridian Financial in November 2014, the London-headquartered company – which has over 80,000 clients across 100 countries – yesterday announced it will open an office in Sydney.

The office will be headed by existing deVere Group wealth consultants Dr Richard Johnson and Stuart Holmes, who join the office from the Bangkok and Zurich offices respectively.

deVere Group regional manager for southeast Asia, John Brophy, said the company had detected growing demand for independent advice from “internationally-focused Australians” and the expatriate community.

"Due to their often more transient lifestyles, careers, education fee planning, retirement planning needs, differing tax status and situations, as well as the financial vehicles available to them, expats and internationally-focused investors have always required specialist cross-border independent financial advice," Mr Brophy said.

"Of course, this is no different in Australia."

deVere Group harbours ambitions to become the “largest and most trusted independent financial advisory firm in this region within a matter of years”, Mr Brophy revealed, adding that the company will actively be recruiting Australian advisers.

In order to meet this objective, deVere Group plans to open offices in Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane in the “near future”.

The company’s founder and global CEO Nigel Green said in October 2014 that Australia could well become deVere’s biggest market, in part due to the size of its expat population.

"This is a landmark development in the continued growth of deVere Group and underscores the firm's commitment to offering clients a full range of financial advisory services and expertise to help them reach their financial goals wherever they choose to live, work and/or retire," Mr Green said.

"This is the start of an incredibly exciting next chapter in deVere's impressive success story and it will see the firm launch into a region of enormous potential and opportunity."