Small firms growing on back of GFC
Smaller wealth management firms and dealer groups are actively targeting private wealth and investment bank advisers affected by ongoing restructuring programs at financial institutions to grow the size of their businesses
Wealth management firm and broker Evans and Partners, for example, has used the restructuring programs over the period of the global financial crisis (GFC) to build, virtually, its entire adviser complement from scratch.
Managing partner David Evans said the firm had attracted 30 advisers from the institutions in the two years since its launch in Melbourne.
“We have been fortunate in picking up quality advisers and other advisory staff from Goldman Sachs JBWere, UBS and even some from Macquarie.
Most of these advisers had been unhappy with how they had ended up in the institutions after restructuring programs, although some have been retrenched from their former positions.
Evans said he hoped to be able to grow the firm’s adviser numbers to about 100 over the next couple of years, using the same strategy of offering equity in the firm.
“There are some signs of a slowdown in restructuring among the institutions, but we’re finding there are still opportunities to pick up good staff.”
He said Evans and Partners had “taken” five advisers off the institutions to launch the Sydney office — two from JBWere, two from UBS, and one from Macquarie.
Boutique wealth management firm Beulah Capital has also been a beneficiary of “ongoing widespread restructuring”, said director Christian Ryan.
“All the big houses at the moment are looking to restructure, resulting in some unhappiness among advisers, which we are looking at as
an opportunity for us.”
Low-cost Melbourne-based dealer group Dover Group director Terry Mc-Master said he was receiving lots of applications from institutional advisers as a result of restructuring programs,
a few of which he has considered.
“The new economic reality is that the institutions can no longer afford to
co-exist with the
Pareto principle, or the 80-20 rule, where 80 per cent of sales come from 20 per cent of your advisers.”
Instead, they’re moving to reduce their costs and overheads by rationalising from the 80 per cent section, which could ultimately affect quite a lot of advisers.
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