Sally Manion
With a view to furthering its corporate client base, financial planning firm IpacSecurities has rolled out some major changes to its fee-based Wealth Builder offering that will see its advisers specialising in younger executive clients.
The offer, which is scheduled to be fully operational by early 2008, will see Ipac advisers directing their attention towards a younger demographic of clients rather than pre-retirees, who are traditionally the bread and butter of the advice business.
Ipac director and national head of financial planning Sally Manion said Ipac already has a corporate program, but its number of corporate clients has reached critical mass, requiring them to deepen their offering.
“Having developed strong relationships with major corporates, we found that there was an incredible need for specialised advice. And now that we’re beginning to operate at such volumes, we can actually afford that specialisation,” she said.
“We believe that by specialising and having advisers that only deal in the executive space, we will be able to achieve a much better client experience as well as much better practice management and profitability.”
Manion said although there are many good boutique operators out there, they have not been able to reach the level of scale needed.
“What distinguishes us from other firms is that because we have a scalable advice offering across all of our offices, we are able to offer something quite unique,” Manion said.
Financial planner with Ipac Ian Town also believes that while other companies are attempting to offer similar services, he is not convinced they’re achieving it.
According to Town, the executive market opens up a number of challenges that an adviser would not normally experience with the pre-retiree market.
“These are clients who are high earners and who are very time poor. They’re busy people focused on being successful within their own companies. And, therefore, they may not be very focused on their personal situation,” he said.
“They expect a high level of service and can be quite demanding. As such, you may have to work a little harder to engage with this sort of client. That being said, it can be a very rewarding area to work in.”
