CountPlus today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Accurium for an acquisition price of $9.0 million from Challenger Limited.

The acquisition of Accurium, Australia’s leading supplier of actuarial certificates* and education services to the SMSF sector, is highly strategic and provides CountPlus the opportunity to expand its core service delivery to accounting firms and SMSF professionals across Australia.The acquisition is the second transaction under the CountPlus ‘core-related’ strategy to invest into activities that are concerned with inputs and/or outputs in core, firm-related activities and that have a regulatory aspect or that enable/enhance core firm activities.

The Accurium acquisition announced today follows the May 2021 announcement of a 51% acquisition of Wealth Axis, a paraplanning, technology and administration services business.

CountPlus will hold an 85% shareholding in Accurium with Key Management Personnel holding 15%, aligning with the CountPlus Owner Driver-Partner (OD-P™) strategy. Douglas McBirnie will become Managing Director of Accurium, and all current serving team members will be retained by the business.

Matthew Rowe, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of CountPlus, said CountPlus has a strong platform to integrate and grow the Accurium business and to leverage the CountPlus competitive advantage within the accounting and SMSF administration service sector in Australia.

“Accurium sits naturally within our network and has a subscriber base of some 3,000 accounting firms and 11,000 SMSF professionals who require the efficiencies of online, automated actuarial certification and supplementary education and technical services,” he said.

“The Accurium business is an online service provider, is highly automated, using proprietary actuarial calculators. It is technology-enabled with an ability to scale up as an ageing population transition their SMSF’s to retirement phase. Accurium estimates the current addressable market for SMSF Actuarial certificates is circa 140,000 funds.

“Like CountPlus, Accurium is a reputable business with a values-led team seeking to make a difference to clients. We look forward to welcoming the team to CountPlus and to realising the growth and earnings potential of the core-related Accurium business,” Mr. Rowe concluded.

*An actuarial certificate may be required by a Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) to claim exempt current pension income in the Fund’s annual tax return. The actuarial certificate would calculate the percentage of the Fund’s income that would be exempt from tax.