The licensees set to be winners and losers of CY24
Preliminary results from Wealth Data for the 2024 calendar year have unveiled which licensees reported the highest growth and losses in adviser numbers.
The research house found that Centrepoint Alliance led the way for growth with gains of 39 advisers last year. Finchley and Kent followed closely with 37 advisers, and PictureWealth with 34 advisers.
As one of Australia’s largest licensee owners with more than 500 advisers, Centrepoint is seeking organic growth on its licensed and self-licensed offering to maintain scale in FY25.
In terms of adviser declines, Entireti saw the highest departures with 90 advisers leaving the firm. However, 59 of the losses came from the AMP licensees that Entireti purchased in 2024.
Last month marked the formal completion of the AMP-Entireti deal, with Entireti having acquired AMP’s advice licensees – AMP Financial Planning, Hillross and Charter Financial Planning – and self-licensed business Jigsaw. Meanwhile, AMP has retained a 30 per cent stake.
Count experienced the second-highest losses at 74 advisers in 2024. The majority of these departures were from its Merit Wealth licensees, which mainly provides limited advice focused on self-managed super fund administration.
Moreover, WT Financial Group bid farewell to 40 advisers during the calendar year.
Signs of recovery
Looking across the entire industry, Wealth Data estimated a total net loss of 143 advisers for the full calendar year, with the industry entering the year with 15,623 and ending with 15,480.
In comparison to the previous year’s net loss of 181 advisers, 2024’s result indicates progress in stemming adviser departures.
A strong 505 new entrants commenced their careers in financial advice, and 476 are still current on the Financial Advisers Register (FAR). This was up from 408 new entrants in 2023 with 366 still current.
Wealth Data founder and director Colin Williams described 2024 as “another good year for new licensees”, with 118 beginning operations. This was a slight improvement from the 114 new licensees that began in 2023.
Meanwhile, the number of ceased licensees rose from 63 in 2023 to 97 in 2024. Out of the 97 that ceased last year, the vast majority (78 or 80 per cent) commenced prior to 2021.
Some 108 advisers were affected by the licensees that ceased and commenced between 1 January 2021 to year-end of 2024. Positively, 77 or 71 per cent of these advisers are still active on the FAR.
“This indicates that most have been involved in mergers or takeovers and are still practising,” Williams said.
However, the director noted that a complete update on the 2024 numbers will be released later this month, with licensees having 30 days to report changes.
AUTHOR
Jasmine Siljic
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