IOOF has suffered at least some adviser attrition in seeking to move Godfrey Pembroke advisers to its new license, with up to a quarter opting for self-licensing or new homes.
While the peer-elected Godfrey Pembroke Practice Development Group has suggested that a “majority” of its members have indicated their intention to transition to a new Godfrey Pembroke branded license under IOOF, a spokesman for the group, Harry Manzouratos acknowledged that meant that somewhere over 75% of advisers had indicated their intention.
That appears to accord with suggestions from other licensees who have signalled they remain in active and, in some cases, advanced discussions with some Godfrey Pembroke advisers.
The announcement by the Practice Development Group (PDG) that a “majority” of advisers were prepared to move to the IOOF licensing arrangements was acknowledged by IOOF in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on Tuesday which simply noted the PDG statement and attached the PDG statement without further comment.
Pivotal to the majority PDG decision appears to have been a number of key concessions on the part of IOOF, primary amongst which is that a member of the PDG will have a seat on the Godfrey Pembroke IOOF license board.
Confirming the approximate 75% adviser number to Money Management, Manzouratos noted the manner in which IOOF had recognised the underlying spirit of the Godfrey Pembroke adviser group with a seat on the licensee board.
Consistent with the PDG’s formal announcement, he said that members of the group had been keen to secure an “adviser led” solution to deliver a “client first culture”.
The PDG formal announcement did not that all members of the PDG board, “bar one” had had indicated their intention to transition to the new Godfrey Pembroke license within IOOF.
What appears to have been important in the final majority vote by the PDG was that the PDG structure would continue and that the PDG would have veto rights on practices and advisers that could join the license “to ensure cultural alignment and high standards are maintained”.
A number of licensees have been vying to attract Godfrey Pembroke advisers and were part of a due diligence process initiated by the PDG board. Amongst those were CountPlus, Centrepoint and Madison.
Countplus announced earlier this month that it had attracted Godfrey Pembroke firm, Ascent Private Wealth, the principal of which, Mark O’Toole, was a member of the PDG board.
