PIS loses one-third of planners in a year

Professional Investment Services (PIS) has shed more than a third of its planners in the last 12 months, with the numbers falling from 866 in 2012 to 559 this year.

The drastic fall represents a drop of more than 35 per cent and is the third year in a row that PIS had shed significant numbers of planners since joining Centrepoint Alliance in 2010.

Money Management/DEXX&R Top 100 Dealer Groups tables published in previous years showed PIS had lost 361 planners from 2011 to 2012 and a further 157 planners from 2010 to 2011.

PIS has been one of the top-ranking planning groups by planner numbers for more than 10 years and has held a top-five ranking in Money Management Top 100 Dealer Group surveys since 2002.

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PIS chief executive John de Zwart said the reason for the drop in planner numbers was due to planners leaving to join other planning groups, selling their books of business and retiring or leaving because of compliance and regulatory shifts in the industry.

"We have reclassified who we consider to be a financial planner within the group but we have also seen a lot of competitor activity around our planners with institutions approaching them with open cheque books," de Zwart said.

"We have also seen advisers leaving because of changes in financial planning or because we felt they could no longer comply with what was required under the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA)."

De Zwart stated that audit and training procedures decided which advisers would be removed from the group and that this was no different for most financial planning groups across the country.

"This shift is noticeable with PIS being bigger but we are working to ensure the mistakes of the past do not become part of our future. We will learn from them, not make them again," de Zwart said.

Despite losing high numbers of planners de Zwart said the group was committed to the PIS name and would not engage in any rebranding of the planning group.

"We are committed to the PIS brand since we are proud of the planning family within it who have continued to support the business and we want to continue to be known for this," he said.

"We hope to improve the reputation of PIS in the market and that is a gradual journey over the next few years which is dependent on us building and delivering on FOFA requirements."

"Our plan is to be leaders in the non-institutional advice space and while we agree we are not there yet we believe we have turned around many of the issues with the PIS brand that existed in previous years."

The Money Management Top 100 Dealer Group survey also shows that Perpetual Private Clients reported a sizable fall in planner numbers, shedding almost half. It had 53 planners in 2013 compared with 104 in 2012.

Planning groups that reported high levels of growth included Charter Financial Planning, which added 296 planners over the past year to record 779 planners in 2013.

Ord Minnett more than doubled its planner numbers, moving from 84 to 203 over the past year, while Magnitude and Guardian Advice benefitted from the demise of Australian Financial Services, picking up a number of its planners.

Magnitude added 70 planners to its overall numbers, more than doubling them to record a total of 117 planners, while Guardian Advice added 68 planners to record a total of 208 planners.

Correction: In the print edition of this story (Money Management, July 11, 2013, pg 1 - "PIS loses one third of planners in a year") it was reported that the Sentry Group of financial planning practices had reduced its planner numbers from 298 to 101 over the last 12 months. This was incorrect with Sentry's planner numbers having only been reduced by 17, from 164 to 147.