The DeakinFinancial Services Group is on the hunt for a further 100 planners and will set up its own master trust and front end software systems after a marathon meeting was held by the group’s senior management last week.
The decisions were made after managing director Murray Hills, adviser services general manager Dan Parry, and sales and marketing general manager Graeme Hyland met with other senior figures in the group over two days to discuss the future of the listed company.
At present, Deakin has 111 licensed financial advisers operating around the country, with 75 of those based in Victoria and 24 in Western Australia, with the remainder spread across the other states.
Hills says the board has adopted a strategy to develop a presence in New South Wales and Queensland and will engage in a specific recruitment drive in those states, with the overall aim to push adviser numbers past 200 in 12 months.
In terms of those figures, Hills says that New South Wales planners will account for 20 per cent of the group’s overall planner numbers, while Queensland will account for 15 per cent of total numbers.
If Deakin does double its planners the New South Wales component will be around 40 planners, up from one at present, while the Queensland number will grow from three to 30.
The group hopes to build some of those numbers through acquisition and is currently in discussion with a number of groups — two of which boast 70 planners and 35 planners respectively — with a decision on any deals to be made later this month.
The group hopes to pick up advisers through its package offering of services.
Parry says this will include a front-end system based on software developed for the Asian planning market by Singaporean telecommunications group SingTel and adapted for local use.
Hyland says the group will also set up its own master trust vehicle and is in the process of fine tuning that with a trustee company but will also badge other providers products for planner use.
Deakin has already begun to advertise for planners and life writers to join the group, with a number of information sessions to be held in Melbourne in two weeks, and in New South Wales and Queensland in the coming months.
