AMP claims planners little affected by merger



AMP Limited has acknowledged the possibility it may lose some planners as it presses ahead with its merger with AXA, but has made clear most advisers will not even notice because it will be maintaining the existing branding and multi-advice branding.
In a briefing provided to industry journalists, AMP chief executive Craig Dunn (pictured) together with AMP Financial Services managing director Craig Meller said that life for planners in both groups would be very much business as usual.
“Ninety-eight per cent of our team will be doing what they’ve always done,” Meller said.
Dunn said a key immediate focus would be identifying and retaining the best talent from the two mergers.
However he confirmed that the merger would result in some job losses where duplication was found to exist between the two organisations.
So far as was possible, the company would look to achieve its objectives via natural attrition and voluntary redundancies.
Both Dunn and Meller said the only branding issues with respect to financial planning would occur when AMP’s entitlement to continue using the AXA brand expired in two years’ time – something that would affect AXA Financial Planning.
However they said consultations would be held with those working in the AXA Financial Planning area to determine what they wanted to do with respect to future branding.
Recommended for you
With the final tally for FY25 now confirmed, how many advisers left during the financial year and how does it compare to the previous year?
HUB24 has appointed Matt Willis from Vanguard as an executive general manager of platform growth to strengthen the platform’s relationships with industry stakeholders.
Investment manager Drummond Capital Partners has announced a raft of adviser-focused updates, including a practice growth division, relaunched manager research capabilities, and a passive model portfolio suite.
When it comes to M&A activity, the share of financial buyers such as private equity firms in Australia fell from 67 per cent to 12 per cent in the last financial year.