History
Kelly+Partners was founded in 2006 by Brett Kelly with his wife, Rebecca Kelly.
The first partners were Scott Elwin (Central Coast office), Craig Bullock and Ada Poon (North Sydney office) who met while working together. All four of them believed there was an opportunity to create a specialist accounting, taxation and audit firm focused on private businesses and their owners in Sydney in the style of a Swiss private bank, providing a coordinated, personal, excellent and discrete service.
Since our inception, we have completed more than 23 growth transactions, building Kelly+Partners to the formidable market position it enjoys today. Over the firm’s 11-year history, we have developed specialised industry knowledge and deep relationships.
Our investment philosophy and the accounting firms with which we partner are service-based businesses within which the most important assets are the intangibles: the right people, their business practices and intellectual capital, and their customer relationships.
We have developed considerable experience addressing these complex issues and are the leading partner firm in the accounting industry. Along the way, we believe we have distinguished ourselves as a flexible partner who delivers on what we promise and a value-added partner with deep sector insight.
We always take a controlling shareholding and have partnered using a variety of transaction and capital structures. We take great pride in building long-term partnerships.
Many people have asked us how Kelly+Partners has been able to maintain its culture and results through the many fads and market cycles. Our answer has always been simple: that we have stayed focused on our values and the operating tenets we have developed.
Learn more about Brett
Brett Kelly is a devoted family man, highly successful businessman, active philanthropist, lover of the arts, retired cricketer and all-round good guy.
Born in Sydney in 1974, he grew up in the inner west of Sydney, graduating from the University of Technology, Sydney (BBus) and then from the University of New South Wales (MTax) together with completing his studies to be admitted as a chartered accountant.
After commencing at Price Waterhouse as an undergraduate aged 18, and spending nearly 5 years with the firm, he spent time at Schroders in corporate finance, wrote four best-selling books and was the youngest accredited professional speaker in Australia.
After working across chartered firms for 12 years, writing and speaking, Brett founded Kelly+Partners with his wife Rebecca. He has built the business into one of the industry’s leading firms. Brett deeply believes in the power of people to accomplish incredible things and has always used his success to improve and enrich the lives of countless people. Within the community, Brett and his family are generous supporters of dozens of organisations and causes. Brett has a genuine interest in art, politics and society and is an avid skier. In short, Brett Kelly epitomises the ideal of living life to the fullest. He has an active mind and body, and a huge heart. We are lucky to call him our founder.
Revenue Growth
Kelly+Partners has experienced strong growth since its inception in 2006, as demonstrated in the chart below. In the historical period from FY07 to FY16, the company generated a consolidated revenue CAGR of 37 per cent. Over the period from FY16 to FY18, the company is forecasting consolidated pro forma revenue CAGR of 8.5 per cent.
Geographic Reach
Today, Kelly+Partners encompasses 38 Operating Business Owners and a total of 280 team members, spread across 25 individual operating businesses and 17 locations.
The business proposition is to provide:
- Leadership and Management on a centralised basis to reduce costs, improve efficiency and enhance the competitive position of the operating businesses
- Intellectual Property – including brand, marketing, systems and processes – which aims to address the operating
- Businesses' ability to attract, develop and retain team members and increase the breadth of service offering
- Structure and investment to facilitate succession and long-term growth of the operating businesses through a controlling >50 per cent interest via a company subsidiary.
