Rival targets DKN planners

The recently departed founder of DKN Financial, Murray Hills, is attempting to poach many of the dealer group’s 36 Western Australian advisers into his next venture.

Hills, who was responsible for bringing most of the WA-based advisers into the 100-strong planner group, is in early negotiations with Perth-based dealer groups, including Wealthsure, but said last week his preference was to start his own dealer group.

“I like the idea of starting up my own business again,” said the man whose name was on Deakin Financial Services’ first licence in 2000.

“I’ve spoken to some organisations who are prepared to put in some equity.”

Hills went on holiday to Bali for a fortnight after leaving DKN on February 18, and was touring the Margaret River wine region last week, and as such had not yet spoken to any DKN advisers about the prospect of jumping ship.

However, he said many of the advisers had been “looking around” ever since the dealer group’s takeover of the AustChoice investment platform early last year. That deal resulted in the departure of directors Mark Hancock and Peter Daly, while Hills left the board to run the dealer group and dealer solutions business, the head office of which moved from Perth to Melbourne.

“It’s human nature that people form the closest relationship with whoever has brought them into a group, and that continues after that person moves on,” said Hills, whose son Ryan remains the group’s WA practice manager.

Hills speculated that some of the WA-based advisers might also miss having decisions made in close proximity to themselves.

He admitted that was part of his own reason for departing DKN.

However, DKN chief operating officer Phil Butterworth said that while Hills’ work on the integration of AustChoice had been “great”, he had not been considered the right person to “drive forward” the dealer group and his recent track record in recruiting advisers had been poor.

“It’s disappointing to hear that Murray will be targeting advisers that may be unhappy in a group that he himself had just been running,” he said.

Butterworth was not concerned at the prospect of losing some advisers, pointing out that a more performance-based pricing structure introduced eight months ago had whittled down the number of DKN authorised representatives from 130 to 100.

He said DKN was addressing “frustration” expressed by its planners about service levels over the past year.

The new dealer solutions head, Chris Lack, and dealer group head Bill Crawford, had been speaking to the 100 DKN advisers and the 200 others serviced by the group, and found “nothing in the wind”, according to Butterworth.