Putting together the Top 100 dealers

By Kate Kachor

JUSTasthe Top 100 dealer groups surveyed have been through some changes in the last 12 months, so has the Top 100 research itself.

This year is the third year that the Top 100 dealer’s survey has been associated with well-known industry figure and researcher Tom Collins.

In previous years Collins worked alongside researcher Leo Wassercug and crunched the numbers for the first two editions of theMoneyManagementTop 100. In 1999 the pair worked under the KPI Research banner and last year under the Look Research banner.

Since then they have moved in separate directions with Collins teaming up with Rainmaker Information, in particular its managing director Chris Page, to provide the data for this year’s survey.

The partnership deal between the two groups combines The Collins Consultancy research data on dealer groups, discretionary master trusts and financial services technology, with Rainmaker’s research on super funds, asset consultants and managed funds.

Under the terms of the deal, Collins will continue his consultancy practice independent of Rainmaker but his research projects, including theMoney ManagementTop 100, Master Trust and Technology Report, will all be conducted under the Rainmaker banner.

“We agreed that Rainmaker would takeover my surveys and that I would help them build their retail presence,” Collins says.

“My consultancy business remains separate to Rainmaker, and I will focus more and more on this,” he adds.

Page says the merger is an integral part of Rainmaker’s push into the retail market.

“Clearly there is more blurring of the lines of what is the institutional market and what is the retail market. For us to provide industry information, and with Tom working on the data business it presented a good opportunity,” Page says.

As for theMoneyManagement Top 100survey, it followed similar methodology as last year, with a few exceptions. This year Collins and Page sent the questionnaire to more than 700 dealer groups, a figure well above last year’s survey participants of 200.

After the surveys were sent, the tedious task of chasing those who had returned the forms incorrectly, or not at all, came next. As the data began to flow in and take shape, Collins and Page then ranked the groups by the number of financial planners. The information was collated and the survey was then reviewed by Collins to check for inaccuracies.

“This year we found that the large dealer groups (especially those owned by institutions or listed) made a better effort to respond to the survey,” Collins says.

Before founding KPI Research, Collins was an executive director of Godfrey Pembroke group where he helped develop key projects such as e-commerce operations. Collins also has a background with licensed securities dealer, MoneyLink and IntegraText.

Rainmaker, which was founded by Page and James Burkitt in 1992, was sold to Thomson Financial three years ago. Thomson sold the business last year following the US$1 billion acquisition of Primark. Page won the bidding for Rainmaker from fellow founder Burkitt and the Investor Info Group and has since returned to head up the group.