Diversify or die, says Younger

Financial planning businesses are going to need to diversify and specialise to be successful in the future, according to Securitor head Neil Younger.

Younger will address the issue of how planners can grow their businesses in the coming years at next week’s Securitor Convention.

Younger believes that while individual advisers are increasingly going to need to specialise, advice businesses are going to expand.

“[Businesses] are going to have to manage a carefully planned expansion,” he told Money Management.

He cites risk and debt management as two areas where planning businesses will increasingly have to offer services.

However, there is a possibility that planning firms may have difficulty attracting specialised staff.

As markets cool traditionally risk advisers experience increased demand for their services.

Money Management’s recent salary survey showed that while the market has slowed somewhat, salaries for risk advisers will continue to rise.

Profusion director Simone Mears says that “there aren’t enough qualified people available to fill the [job] vacancies [in risk advice]”.

Younger believes that the market will naturally start to produce more specialisation within businesses.

“As more and more businesses merge or are sold I think that this is going to help this process,” he said.

Neil Younger will be talking at the next Securitor Convention. It is being held in New Zealand from Tuesday the 15th to Friday the 18th of April.