A number of well-known financial planning groups will relinquish their licences, with advisers set to move across to other groups, according to research conducted as part of the Money Management Top 100 Financial Planning Group Survey.
While the closure of Genesys was flagged some months ago by AMP, IOOF informed Money Management that Plan B and My Adviser would be wrapped up with Plan B planners moving to Shadforth while My Adviser planners would move to Consultum.
The shift of planners has reduced the number of planning groups held by IOOF from nine down to seven including recently purchased Shadforth Financial Group, which in turn owned Western Pacific Financial Group.
However, it has not appeared to have any noticeable impact on IOOF with only three of its planning groups reporting a decrease in total planner numbers of 11 since the 2014 Top 100 Survey.
Western Australia-based planning group WealthSure has also had its licence cancelled but the name will continue to be used after Sentry Group Advice purchased the group and re-housed it within its corporate structure as WealthSure Financial Services.
While acquisitions have led to a rationalisation at IOOF, the only other institution to make a large scale purchase since the 2014 survey was Australian Unity which picked up non-aligned group Premium Wealth Management, led by Paul Harding-Davis.
Outside the institutions, Financial Index continued to grow, purchasing accounting group Crowe Horwath while the Beacon Group, led by Peter Daly, added Risk and Investment Advisors Australia alongside The FinancialLink Group. The other major acquisition was that of Matrix Financial Planning by Clearview.
Yet despite these movements overall planner numbers remained stable since the last year’s Top 100 Survey with total planner numbers in 2015 at 15,274 compared with 15,069 in 2014.
AMP Financial Planning and stable-mate Charter Financial Planning continued to lead the pack with 1,720 and 837 advisers respectively with AMP-owned groups equalling about one-fifth of the total Top 100 numbers.
Top 10 Planning Groups in Money Management 2015 Top 100
| Financial Planning Group Name: | Financial Planners | |
| 1 | AMP Financial Planning | 1,720 |
| 2 | Charter Financial Planning | 837 |
| 3 | Millennium3 Financial services | 696 |
| 4 | Commonwealth Financial Planning | 582 |
| 5 | NAB Financial Planning | 530 |
| 6 | Count Financial Limited | 519 |
| 7 | Westpac Financial Planning | 511 |
| 8 | Securitor Financial Group | 465 |
| 9 | Professional Investment Services | 440 |
| 10 | Financial Wisdom | 382 |
