PIS to take Evans departure in stride
The departure of Grahame Evans after five years as managing director at Professional Investment Services (PIS) was “perfectly timed”, according to chief executive Robbie Bennetts.
“Obviously we didn’t want to lose [Grahame], but we had almost completed a management restructure and are readying ourselves for further growth,” Bennetts said, following Evans’ decision to join Tower in the newly created position of Australian investments head.
Two of three planned additions to the PIS management team had already been made, with accountant Ian Brown from Brisbane’s Bernays Brown taking over Evans’ dealer group management responsibilities.
Fiona Fourie had been lured across the Tasman from Tower NZ for a senior distribution role, while Bennetts said a product executive had been hired but could not yet be identified.
Evans’ “big corporate knowledge” from his prior days with AMP would be missed, Bennetts said, but would be replaced by the two representatives from PIS stakeholders Aviva, who will shortly join its board.
“Grahame’s heaviest workload was on finding and budgeting mergers and acquisitions, but I used to do that work myself and the knowledge remains in the business,” he said.
Evans had “PIS blood pumping through him” before he ever joined the dealer group thanks to its relationship with AMP, Bennetts said, and he expected that to continue with Evans at Tower.
PIS already uses several Tower products, most notably its Tower Trust wrap account, Bennetts said. (This product now forms part of the Australian Wealth Management spin-off, and been rebranded under its Australian Executor Trustees subsidiary.)
Growth for PIS will be focussed internationally, Bennetts said, revealing the dealer group was close to completing due diligence on purchasing equity in two Hong Kong financial planning practices (employing a total of 50 people)and one in Malaysia (employing 140).
After entering Asia three years ago, Bennetts said PIS’ Singapore licence, supported by 100 planners, had begun to turn a profit, while a two man franchise in Hong Kong “can not keep up” with the demand from Australian expatriates.
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