Despite the absence of a chief executive, Sealcorp has wasted no time firing a new salvo in the rapidly escalating war on wrap accounts, announcing revised terms and conditions to lock in its top advisers.
Sealcorp’s $5.25 billion Asgard master trust has turned the heat up on new generation wrap account and traditional discretionary master trust rivals, unveiling a raft of new changes including a generously revised adviser bonus scheme.
The move is seen by industry sources as an aggressive pre-emptive strike on rival portfolio service providers such as the Bankers Trust-owned BT Portfolio Services.
Sources say that by increasing remuneration benefits to advisers – in some cases by as much as 70 basis points – Asgard has gone a long way to short-circuiting fears that bigger business writers could opt for a rival service offering more attractive income streams.
This is good news for advisers writing large volumes of Asgard business.
Under the terms of Asgard’s new Volume Benefits schedule, an adviser writing over $100 million will now earn 40 per cent of administration fees on top of the existing trail commission structure.
Asgard’s Volume Benefits sliding schedule will see advisers at the lower end ($10 to $20 million) receive an additional 7.5 per cent of the total admin fee.
Asgard’s national sales manager, Mark Rantall, says his organisation is making no bones about placing its stamp firmly on the market.
“All of our changes mean advisers can now get a greater share of the revenue cake,” he says.
Rantall took a further swipe at wrap accounts saying the industry was dogged by a lot of “hype” and that basic administration services were being “way oversold” at present.
Rantall says the next step for discretionary master trust is to expand into custody services. It is widely tipped that Asgard will roll out a custodial service in the very near future.
The changes head a number of revised conditions unveiled by Asgard recently.
They include rebates offered on all new business, encouraging advisers down the fee-for-service route. Other initiatives include an electronic switching system called adviser Portfolios. The system allows an adviser to categorise clients by various criteria and update portfolios via electronic means.
