AdvantEdge loses key staff to Macquarie

Dealergroup AdvantEdge has lost three key players to Macquarie Bank, including its founder Jane Watts, who has moved on to head up a similar venture within Macquarie’s Financial Services division.

Colleagues Doug Webber and Tony Vaessen have also made the move to Macquarie, and the three are working together to set up a financial services unit targeting corporate clients.

Their departures follow restructuring at AdvantEdge, which split into two business units in May 2002. Parent firm National Australia Group, which also owns MLC, divided the group between AdvantEdge’s employee benefit program, and AdvantEdge Financial Planning, which has now merged with MLC Private Client Services (PCS).

“AdvantEdge Financial Planning and MLC PCS were brought together to leverage the group’s corporate and business client base, and to package solutions across the entire group’s client base,” an MLC spokesperson says.

MLC PCS and AdvantEdge Financial Planning continue to operate under their own brand names, and a spokesperson for MLC says there are currently no plans to drop the AdvantEdge name because it is well-recognised by blue-chip clients, although she did not rule out name changes at a future date.

Watts, Webber and Vaessen have been replaced, with at least two executives moving to AdvantEdge from NAB’s Wealth Management division. Scott Hartley, formerly head of business strategy at the wealth management division, is now head of AdvantEdge Financial Planning, while Kerry Ross, formerly head of the wealth management division’s adviser investor services, heads the AdvantEdge employee benefits program.

Meanwhile, AdvantEdge could see some of its clients trickle across to the new Macquarie venture, if clients choose to follow the three executives who had been with AdvantEdge since around 1995.

The trio are in the process of assessing existing resources at Macquarie, which includes a national network of more than 50 financial planners, and will then go about hiring staff and targeting corporate clients to get the division up and running.

“We are looking at available resources, but the next step is to get quality financial planners on board, and then draw on existing relationships to raise corporate demand — we are meeting with people we know already,” Webber says.