AustAdviser head leaves to join rival

Thegeneral manager of ING’s now defunct AustAdvisers dealer group, Neil MacDonald, has left the group to join rival AMP.

MacDonald, who also headed up the equity development division within ING, will take up the role of chief operating officer at AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP) at the end of this month.

The move comes just weeks after ING announced a restructure of its dealer groups that saw AustAdvisers, as well as the Lynx Financial Services and Partnership Planning dealer groups, disappear in favour of a new flagship dealership, Tandem Financial Advice.

As a result of the restructure, it is understood all 23 AustAdvisers’ proper authority holders have joined Tandem, which is to be headed by the former national sales manager at Wealthpoint, Andrew Doquile.

MacDonald is the second senior dealer group executive to leave ING in the wake of the restructure.

Last month, the managing director of Lynx, Stuart Abley, walked away from the ING group to join IOOF funds management.

Meanwhile, the head of ING Advice, Mike Goodall, says Tandem will look to boost the number of its advisers by taking on planners from outside the ING network.

According to Goodall, Tandem will target independent advisers who have some relationship with ING, and who may want to move into an institutional group.

So far, some 100 planners from the 260 who made up AustAdvisers, Partnership Planning and Lynx, have decided to join Tandem. The remainder have four months to decide whether they will join the group.