HUB24, the investment and superannuation platform business of Investorfirst, has added two more dealer groups to its client list.
Beresfords Financial Planning has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra while Elston Partners is based primarily in northern NSW, south-east Queensland and Canberra. The two groups have a combined funds under management (FUM) of close to $1 billion.
Investorfirst chief executive Darren Pettiona said HUB24 now has around 25 dealer groups that are committed to the key platform. He said it had been a year of growth in terms of dealer group wins and the addition of portfolio managers.
"With the continued release of draft legislation for the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms, an increasing number of dealer groups are now reviewing their business models with a view to implementation throughout 2012," he said.
"This is being reflected in the rapidly escalating number of enquiries we’re receiving and a growing base of new HUB24 clients."
Pettiona said that while consolidation within the industry could have an effect on HUB24’s business, the fact that the platform was 100 per cent FOFA-ready and more up-to-date than some of the old legacy systems used by many institutions would help.
He said that if financial advisers wanted to be independent, then an institution wouldn’t chose to take over a group such as Matrix Planning Solutions and then tell all the advisers that they had to use an institutional platform – because the advisers might all decide to "walk".
"If you want to keep control over them and have some influence on product, you’ve got to give them some level of independence.
"We’re looking forward to 2012 as a year of consolidation and further growth. Our aim is to help advisers re-engineer their businesses to become both an advisory and a product manufacturer."
