In a bid to separate the best from the rest, Genesys Wealth Advisers will urge Garrisons advisers who can’t produce a minimum of $55,000 in dealer services fees to join a separate dealer group, where they will forfeit their opportunity to operate under the Genesys brand.
The separate dealer group is a lower service, lower cost operation called Synergy, of which Associated Planners holds a 50 per cent stake.
Despite the steep annual dealer fee, which is believed to be one of the highest in the industry, Genesys joint deputy managing director Andrew Creaser denied a significant proportion of Garrisons’ over 100 advisers would be unable to join the group. He said “less than ten” would be excluded from the Genesys business and that coming under the Synergy banner would be one of several options available to the advisers.
“It will be one of the alternatives available to those advisers but it’s not a case of us moving them in, it’s a case of Synergy being a compelling enough offering in its own right for those advisers to go there, and if they choose to go somewhere else we’re not going to stand in their way,” he said.
Creaser also said some advisers who were unable to afford the dealer fee, but who had particularly good growth potential, could still be given the chance to join Genesys, provided that they come up with the money within a two or three year period.
However, Creaser was quick to stress that only those businesses sighted as having particularly strong growth potential would be given this opportunity.
Creaser said the minimum dealer fee, which is similar to the original fee expected of Associated Planners advisers, was set so high to attract the best quality advisers.
Garrisons and Associated Planners merged last year after Garrisons’ owner, Challenger, bought Associated planners. The merged groups said in February they would change their name to Genesys.
“Most of the changes will be experienced by the Garrisons advisers and it’s the Garrisons advisers who basically have a decision to make about whether they come over to the Genesys brand because the Associated Planners advisers will be coming over automatically,” he said.
