Planners and other key stakeholders with Australian Financial Services (AFS) have held a series of meetings over the past two weeks to consider the future of the dealer group following completion of a far-reaching strategic review.
The meetings followed a prolonged board meeting a week earlier where Money Management understands the findings of the strategic review were discussed, along with a number of options which were the subject of a consultative process with planners and stakeholders.
A spokesman for the company confirmed the meetings to Money Management but declined to outline the options under discussion, saying no definitive announcements were likely to be made for a number of weeks.
The series of meetings within AFS have generated persistent speculation around the future of the dealer group and reawakened suggestions that it might be the subject of a move by one of the major institutions such as ANZ, BT or IOOF.
For around three years between 2006 and 2009 AFS former chief executive, Peter Daly, suggested that the group had been the subject of institutional interest, but this never translated into a formal offer.
AFS announced in October last year that it had retained the services of Seaview Consulting to undertake the strategic review – a process it said would take between eight and 12 weeks.
At that time, the man who had been newly appointed to replace Peter Daly as CEO, Alan Logan, said there was a recognition that the dealer group had to evolve to take account of the changes impacting the industry, not the least of which being the Future of Financial Advice requirements.
"Once a range of fully costed scenarios are completed, we will speak with our advisers and key stakeholders, decide on the right direction and move quickly to implement," he said.
The strategic review with Seaview came at the same time as a number of the major institutions such as BT were ramping up promotion of their dealer group services offering, and as other dealer groups have moved to gain greater scale to deal with the new regulatory environment.
The AFS spokesman last week acknowledged that the challenges confronting the dealer group as a result of the strategic review were little different to those impacting other mid-size organisations operating in the planning space.
While groups such as BT, NAB/MLC and Colonial First State have been pursuing growth in their distribution footprints, this has not translated into undue change in respect of mid-size dealer groups, with Matrix Financial Planning now having been considered as open to acquisition for more than a year.
