PictureWealth appoints head of advice
Advice licensee PictureWealth has appointed John Bezich in a newly created role of head of advice.
Bezich has a background in financial advice as he formerly worked at Westpac Financial Planning for five years and AMP for five years, but most recently spent almost two years at ETF provider Betashares.
He has now taken up the new role at national advice firm PictureWealth which is headquartered in Perth but also has offices in Adelaide and Sydney.
Commenting, chief executive Allan Maitland said: “The appointment is part of our broader strategy to enhance our advice leadership capabilities and accelerate our vision of bringing back more advice to more Australians.
“The role itself has been newly created and takes on expanded responsibilities that reflect our recent growth and acquisitions. John will be overseeing both our scaled and holistic advice offerings, and ensuring we continue to deliver high-quality financial advice to our clients.
“We’re thrilled to have him on board and believe his appointment will play a key role in shaping the future of PictureWealth as a leader in the advice space.”
PictureWealth is keen to grow and gained 41 advisers during the third quarter of 2024, according to Wealth Data. This saw it named as the licensee which experienced the largest adviser gains during the third quarter, followed by Finchley & Kent which gained 37 advisers.
Much of the quarter’s growth was the result of two acquisitions of Superannuation Advice Australia (formerly licensed to AAN Wealth Management) and Financial Advice Australia (formerly licensed to KNR Investments).
It also had three other acquisitions earlier in the quarter. Maitland said the business is focused on building an attractive ecosystem for advice delivery.
“We are simply focused on creating the platform/ecosystem that will bring back and deliver more advice to more Australians and we believe we are on the right path, through our technology development and acquisitions, to create this for Australians who want and need advice, and the industry stakeholders looking to partner for a solution.”
Last year it purchased both Futuro Financial Services and Insight Investment Services, and acquired Neo Financial Solutions in 2020.
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Laura Dew
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