Research house Investment Trends has appointed Tim Sparks to head up its Australian sales team.
He has joined the firm as head of sales – Australia, where he will be responsible for leading the firm’s sales operations across the country.
Sparks was previously the head of distribution and marketing at Bell Direct for five years until May 2024, and a national manager for broking and wealth management at Vanguard Australia for over five years before that where he led the firm’s ETF sales strategy across the broking and financial advice community.
Eric Blewitt, chief executive of Investment Trends, said: “I’m delighted to have Tim on board. His extensive sales strategy experience across financial markets will be pivotal in elevating the service we provide and accelerating our research distribution to help more clients gain a competitive advantage.”
Sydney-based Investment Trends is a specialist financial services market research organisation that provides insights on the needs of retail investors and intermediaries.
The firm has particularly conducted research in the financial advice space to determine trends about businesses and client numbers.
The research organisation’s 2024 Adviser Business Model Report canvassed more than 1,730 advisers to spotlight the strategic changes occuring in the advice landscape. It discovered that advisers are experiencing notable client attrition as a result of fee increases.
This rise in advice fees has meant the average adviser client book has decreased from 120 clients in 2023 to 99 in 2024. This is because of the dual factors of advisers finding it is not cost-effective to service low-balance clients and consumers indicating a reluctance to pay high fees.
Consumers say they are willing to pay $911 on average for receiving advice, presenting a clear divergence from the median fee of $3,960 being charged by their advice firm.
A second report, Adviser Product and Marketing Needs Report, surveyed 1,700 advisers and covered the rise of insourcing by financial advisers who are opting to select investments themselves. Some 35 per cent of advisers surveyed said they are insourcing and have an average funds under management (FUM) of $69.6 million. This segment has slightly grown from 32 per cent last year, the report found.
Head of research Irene Guiamatsia said: “A couple of things are happening. Firstly, advisers have repriced their services and there has been a steep increase in the amount they are charging clients. So now they need to provide additional value back to the client.”
“What that means is a growing proportion of advisers are pitching themselves as stockpickers and experts that can choose products for you, as well as the other services they provide,” she explained.
