Besides accounting and tax services, GPS will now be able to offer its physician clients wealth management, financial planning and 401(k) advisory services, he says.
“In a sense, GPS has an oil field of potential investment advisory and 401(k) clients and Savant has a tried and true rig that GPS clients can benefit from,” Brodeski says.
He has said in the past that Savant, as it gets bigger, will have a harder time keeping up with an ideal 15% growth target, and adding services allows the firm to be more aggressive.
“While we have offered tax services for a couple years, acquiring GPS gives us a separate division that can provide this service to our clients,” he says. “We can now more aggressively promote this add-on service. This adds a new revenue stream. In addition, we anticipate increasing the growth rate of our core business by introducing investment advisory and 401(k) services to the GPS client base.”
The money for the purchase comes from Savant’s own war chest—cash from operations, notes and company equity. Brodeski says the firm hasn’t had to turn to its big credit line or outside private equity for its deals, and doesn’t want to. Outside private equity investors are less patient and want to flip their positions more quickly, he said in an interview last year. “The problem with the outside capital is their time frame typically is three to six years. We want to build a sustainable business that’s focused on creating ideal futures for our clients.”
The GPS purchase adds eight professionals to Savant’s ranks. The firm now has well over 100 employees.
GPS also said in a press release that its decision to join was prompted by Savant’s infrastructure. GPS now gets support with compliance, marketing, IT, human resources, tax research and planning, allowing it to focus solely on client service.
Savant and GPS finalized their partnership on December 31. GPS will operate as a subsidiary of Savant Capital Management.