The financial advice profession has lost 89 advisers this week continuing the recent cascading trend with about 500 leaving within the last four weeks, bringing the industry to 16,545 advisers.
Wealth Data’s analysis showed the week was again dominated by licensees effectively closing to zero advisers with 31 closing up shop, losing 45 advisers and bringing the year-to-date closures to 229, more than double the previous corresponding period.
Financial year to date, the numbers looked worse as many were backdating losses, with 369 closing versus 166 for the same corresponding period.
Of the 31 licensees that closed, 24 were listed under Accounting – Limited Advice (SMSF Advice) for a total loss of 27 advisers. Three licensees were in the Financial Planning model (holistic advice) category which lost eight.
This week, ANZ shed 28 advisers, four of which had switched to new licensees. LUCRF Super, now part of AustralianSuper, fell by seven while Intercharge was down six. Three others closed out losing two advisers each and the remaining 26 all lost one adviser each.
MWL Group led industry growth with a net gain of three advisers, all from different licensees who had resigned earlier in the year. Meanwhile, eight licensee owners had net growth of two including UniSuper who picked up an adviser from Aware Super and the other from LUCRF.
Steinhardt Holdings (Infocus) was also up net two, picking advisers up from ANZ Bank. A new licensee commenced with two advisers, with the practice moving away from Life Plan. Centrepoint, Count, AMP and Excelsuper rounded out the licensee owners who grew by two advisers.
A tail of 16 licensee owners had net growth of one each, including Spark Partnership Group, Euroz Hartleys and Australian Unity.
