Shareholders in listed advice licensees have seen a good 2024 as six of the seven major players reported positive share price growth.
Looking at share price performance from 1 January to 17 December, AMP, Insignia, Fiducian, WT Financial, Count and Centrepoint Alliance all reported positive growth for their shareholders.
The only licensee to report a loss for the period was Sequoia which was subject to a shareholder rout during the year.
The figures compare positively to those during 2023 when performance was equally divided between four licensees reporting gains and four reporting losses with the worst performance demonstrated by Insignia which lost 33 per cent.
For benchmark purposes, the ASX 200 returned 9 per cent year-to-date in 2024.
Top of the table was AMP which saw 73 per cent share price growth during the year compared to losses of 26 per cent in 2023. During the year, the firm divested its advice division to Entireti for $10.2 million, divested its stake in 16 advice practices to AZ NGA for $82.2 million, and also concluded a long-running court case regarding buyer of last resort (BOLR) arrangements.
Discussing the share price growth, a spokesperson for AMP said: “There are a number of factors that influence the share price over the course of a year. We are focused on delivering on our strategy to build value. We have repositioned the portfolio and are driving growth across our wealth businesses, as seen in our Q3 results.
“We have been meeting our cost commitments, executed on a new partnership for the advice business, and completed the return of $1.1 billion of capital to shareholders. Alongside progress towards the launch of our new digital bank, these milestones demonstrate continued delivery of our strategic commitments and ongoing momentum.”
With the advice divestment now formally completed, AMP said its focus now lies on the wealth management space, its North platform, bank and AMP Superannuation.
In second place was Insignia Financial which gained 53 per cent, with the licensee seeing a last-minute 17 per cent share price spike after a takeover bid from US private equity firm Bain Capital.
Insignia saw the largest share price losses of licensees last year when it lost 33 per cent but enacted a turnaround plan this year with the appointment of Scott Hartley as chief executive to replace Renato Mota. Hartley has since revamped the firm’s executive team and unveiled strategic priorities to maximise the benefits of scale and drive efficiencies to achieve around $200 million per annum in net cost savings by FY30.
Meanwhile, Fiducian saw its share price rise by 39 per cent which the firm attributed to factors such as its holistic offering, sustainable business growth strategy and client focus.
Smaller gains were seen at WT Financial (10 per cent), Count (10 per cent) and Centrepoint Alliance (5 per cent). Diverger, which returned 29 per cent in 2023, is no longer listed as it merged with Count in March 2024 to create a combined firm with more than $34.8 billion in funds under advice and 547 advisers.
The only licensee which saw negative growth was Sequoia which reported year-to-date losses of 32 per cent. The firm had a turbulent year with an attempted shareholder rout to oust chief executive Garry Crole and director Kevin Pattison from the board and replace them with head of professional services Brent Jones and former Diverger chair Peter Brook.
The motions were unsuccessful at an extraordinary general meeting on 5 June, but changes were made to the firm in the successive months, including a 10 per cent headcount reduction and the agreement that Crole will step down in FY27.
Looking ahead, Crole said its focus for FY25 includes organically growing its licensee market share and restructuring its specialist investment arm. It also wants to grow its higher-margin salaried advice business.
