Di Cristoforo repositions staff in wake of FOFA
Matrix Planning Solutions has promoted two senior staff and dropped internal paraplanning in the wake of its cancelled sale process and the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms preparation.
Executive director Atit Rungta has moved into the chief operating officer role while practice development manager Tanya Seale has become head of advice, taking over from Allison Dummett who has stepped away from the business for personal reasons.
Matrix managing director Rick Di Cristoforo said Rungta and Seale were long-term Matrix staff members and reflected the group’s ability to retain staff and planners despite FOFA.
“We suffered no planner losses because of FOFA but it did place a hold on it for a time. No-one among our planners said, 'We are not up for this’,” he said.
“Most planners, if they are entrepreneurial, will be annoyed by FOFA but not beaten by it, and most of our planners are looking at it as a new opportunity.”
Di Cristoforo said the sale process, which was cancelled in late February this year, gave the group an opportunity to examine itself through the eyes of other groups - which led to the decision to fully outsource its paraplanning.
“We learnt we can provide services that are used by only a few people, and so we examined those that we provided and the cost and benefits of each of them,” he said.
“Our planners were involved in the decision making and it was clear internal paraplanning was not profitable, so we decided to outsource it to a group we already worked with on a number of occasions.”
Di Cristoforo said Matrix decided to withdraw itself from the market after it became obvious that any offer would change the advice process in use by the group as well as its independence.
He said there were about 12 initial suitors for the business, which was reduced to four serious offers, with two proceeding to due diligence. These were ultimately rejected when the group’s senior management could not see how they would mesh well with Matrix over the long term.
“To have proceeded further would have been to redefine our advice offering and approved products list and to have reduced the choice and value of advice provided by Matrix,” Di Cristoforo said.
“We questioned what we would tell clients when our behaviour changed and decided not to go with any of the offer. In the end we were told we were too independent.”
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