Australian Unityis to set up its own financial planning arm, withGarrisonsproviding the back-office support.
Australian Unity general manager marketing and distribution Derek McMillan says the new planning group will start in July with between eight and 10 planners.
At present Australian Unity is rationalising its sales offices in Victoria and McMillan says between 18 and 20 will remain and will act as bases for financial planners.
“From these offices we will be offering a unique service that will include financial planning, healthcare and all our other financial services products,” he says.
As part of setting up the dealer group Colin Craig has been recruited from the ANZ Group to take on the role of business manager of the new entity. Craig will report directly through to McMillan.
Australian Unity will also continue to offer its own Freedom of Choice master trust but will also rebadge the Garrisions administration platform and operate it under the Master Choice brand.
In recent years, Australian Unity has made a strong push to gain distribution of its fund management products through independent advisers. The move into financial planning could seem to create a conflict of interest.
However, McMillan says the company has tackled this problem by moving its retail distribution operation to the funds management business.
“We see no conflict of interest with other dealerships as our financial planning group will deal just with our customer base. We are already dealing with our customer base through our other products such as healthcare,” McMillan says.
Australian Unity managing director Mark Sibree says the move into financial planning underpins the fund manager’s strategy to strengthen the financial services component of the company.
“We have achieved growth in funds management and recently Australian Unity has become a truly integrated financial services and healthcare group. Until now, financial planning was the missing piece in services we offer to our customers.”
There are more than 200,000 members of the friendly society, which also operates a chain of pharmacies throughout Victoria. It has more than $1.6 billion of funds under management.
Garrisons managing director Kim White says the outsourcing alliance will cut the substantial overheads needed to create a new dealer group.
“The alliance presents an opportunity for Garrisons to foster the progress of Australian Unity’s financial planning business in its formative stages,” he says.
“Garrisons has been able to take on a leadership position in this area due to its track record in developing and delivering services.”
Garrisons was selected after discussions with five dealer groups according to Sibree, who says the key criteria for selection was the quality of its offering, its commitment to a multi-level alliance and the involvement of its senior management in the ongoing building of the business.
