The financial planning industry saw a further loss of 35 adviser roles in a single week, with AMP Financial Planning (FP) seeing the highest number of departures of adviser roles at 15, according to HFS Consulting.
Additionally, year-to-date two AMP-owned financial planning firms, AMP FP and Charter Financial Planning, jointly accounted for 57% of all losses for the self-employed peer group.
On a more positive note, licensee Wealth Trail, which set up last year, welcomed six new advisers from Financial Services Partners (FSP). Two new licensees, Navigate Licence and Strategic Advice Australia, commenced operations this week with three new advisers each who switched from Count Financial and Matrix Planning Solutions, respectively.
Further to that, Australian Unity picked up three new advisers, two from Clearview Financial Advisers and one from AMP FP.
HFS Consulting’s director, Colin Williams, said: “Year-to-date growth of advisers still has Lifespan out in front with a net gain of 62 advisers followed by Interprac at 45 and Sentry Advice 34.
“Technically MLC – GWM have the best net growth with 73 adviser roles. However, 156 advisers switched from NAB to MLC – GWM.”
According to the data from Money Management’s TOP Financial Planning Groups ranking, which captures mid-year number of advisers per licensee, Lifespan Financial Planning grew its adviser numbers from under 180 planners as at the end of July, 2019 to 251 planners 12 months later.
At the same time, InterPrac Financial Planning and Sentry Advice manged to grow their adviser base from 260 to 308, as at the end of July, 2020, and from 86 to 108, respectively.
With 313 advisers on its books, as of this week, InterPrac joined Merit Wealth in the segment of groups with 300 to 400 advisers and has become the eighth largest group in the country.
