PIS continues offshore push

Professional Investment Services (PIS) has revealed another plank of its strategy for offshore expansion, announcing plans for a new business servicing foreign financial advisers.

The business, Advisers World Wide, would offer licensing and other services to planners operating overseas, or those working from Australia with clients offshore.

Advisers working with expat clients in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong would be the key targets, according to PIS chief executive Robbie Bennetts, who said the new business would also provide offshore planners with access to funds management products from around the world.

A new global wrap account, which PIS had previously signalled it was developing, would also form part of the package of services to offshore advisers. The wrap would also be made available to planners independently of the new business, Bennetts said.

The news rounds out a busy period of developments for the country’s second largest dealer group, much of it focused on offshore expansion.

PIS previously revealed it was in negotiations to buy into a financial planning business in the US.

Bennetts said a team of PIS analysts would travel to the US on October 12 to conduct due diligence on the business, but declined to identify the group.

“It [the deal] is progressing well, but who knows, we may get over there and find other things,” Bennetts said.

In Australia, PIS has recently launched a new financial planning business, myblueprint, which will be promoted on television by entertainer Kerri-Anne Kennerley.