Thirteen former Advisor Investment Services (AIS) financial planning practices have broken away creating their own dealer group under the banner of Avenue Capital Management (ACM).
The group opened its doors last week with $600 million in funds under advice, and will be headed by chairman John Moore who was the principal of the AIS North Sydney office.
Other principals of the group include Simon Clifford and Mark Lewin of the Parramatta office and Michael Hiscock and Paul Manka of the North Sydney office.
The planning arm of Mercantile Mutual, ING Financial Planning merged Bleakleys and AIS just over a month ago to form Partnership Planning, and Moore says the decision to leave AIS before this was to avoid a change in the levels of client service.
“We felt that by setting up ACM we would avoid the slow diminish of client services which is due to the inflexible nature of any large structure,” Moore says.
Moore says the decision to leave AIS was originally made by the North Sydney office and was quickly joined by the Parramatta and Newcastle offices.
“The decision was made by those three offices after we saw the new structure Mercantile Mutual proposed for Partnership Planning and we didn’t feel that it was part of our long-term futures,” Moore says.
“Once it was known that we had made that decision and we had notified Mercantile Mutual, the other groups approached us and came on board.”
The group’s initial 13 practices are located in the Hunter Valley and Illawarra regions as well as a number of practices in the greater Sydney area.
At present the group has about 40 staff, with 25 of those either principals or proper authority holders and also holds its own life brokers licence.
Moore says the group’s current plans are to remain as a boutique planning group with expansion limited through the current branches.
However, he says while they will not actively seek other practices to join, some have approached the group and may be on board in the near future.
