St Andrew’s thinking big

StAndrew’s is tendering for a new research partner to help facilitate its ongoing aggressive adviser growth strategy, which now includes establishing a new training and recruitment adviser academy within six months.

The HBOS-owned dealer group, which late last year announced a strategy to grow its adviser numbers from a current 70 to 300 by 2012, wants the new researcher in place before the academy opens for business in Melbourne.

Current research partners Standard & Poor’s, Lonsec and Aviva will potentially be replaced in the tender process in favour of a “close and customised” relationship with a single research partner within six months.

Acting chief executive Paul Northey said the group intended to “partner with someone with a specific expertise in research that we would be prepared to co-brand with as part of our adviser proposition”.

“We’re looking for a customised level of research from the new researcher to the extent that we can embrace it as part of our offering to advisers and clients.

“This entails the researcher being actively involved in our business — including sitting on our investment committee — and not just being a vanilla provider of product profiles.

“The researcher will also have to understand our business in accordance with the segmented offer we take to the market through St Andrew’s and HBOS dealer groups Whittaker Macnaught and Bankwest.”