RiskcompanyAonand financial services groupipacwill launch a joint venture dealer group, Aon Wealth Management (AWM), as well as launching their own platform in the near future.
The dealer group will be majority owned by Aon and make use of the ipac platforms initially, and will sit alongside its existing planning groups — Aon Financial Planning and Protection (AFP&P) and Aon Financial Advisor Services (AFAS). All three groups will be headed up by Denis Owens in the role of managing director.
Owens says it took 15 months to create the new planning outfit and Aon had moved to kick off the third dealer under its own banner in a bid to provide advisers with other options in the transition over to the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA).
At present, the new dealer group is finalising operational plans with a start date of early December. Owens says a number of planners, including key practices from the group’s two existing dealers, are being inducted to join the new dealer group.
Currently AFP&P has 105 proper authority holders, while AFAS has around 120. With the move to the FSRA, Owens says that AFAS would eventually be phased out and planners moved across to one of the other two groups.
Aon would continue to offer advisers the choice of two dealers after the transition of FSRA, as a number of the advisers with Aon have indicated they would prefer to maintain existing relationships with other platform providers.
However, only advisers within AWM will have access to the ipac platforms, which will use ipac’s I-select and Strategic Service for discretionary and non-discretionary investments respectively.
Owens says Aon is planning to develop its own platform in the near future and has struck a licensing agreement to develop a stand-alone system but would work closely with ipac in its development.
He also says the group opted for a joint venture instead of badging a platform, as it wanted to own and control the platform, which was consistent with Aon’s offering of equity stakes in the AFP&P dealer group.
