Associated Planners racks up the numbers

AssociatedPlanners Financial Services(APFS) has continued with its recruitment drive, signing up 16 firms from its rivals in the last eight months, growing its base to over 200 planners and brokers and close to 100 member firms in the process.

APFS managing director Ray Miles says around a third of the defecting planners have joined from small dealer groups, with other defectors joining fromSecuritor,Charter Financial Planning,Professional Investment Services,MLCand InvestorGroup. One planner even forfeited his own dealer’s licence to join APFS.

Miles attributes some of the planner transfers from other dealer groups to a lack of the needed resources to support growing businesses, and also to “a general disillusionment with dealer groups who are promising but not delivering”.

Miles says the planners are joining APFS because of the technology and support offered by the group.

The group, which is 30 per cent owned by Zurich and 70 per cent owned by members and staff, has spent $2 million on developing best practice procedures in back-office systems and a further $2.5 million on IT to date.

The growth is occurring while APFS continues its push into the Asian financial services market, which should see the group form a joint venture financial planning business in Singapore by the third quarter of this year.

Singapore is likely to be used as a test market ahead of plans to launch the dealer group across the Asia-Pacific region.