Yesterday’s announcement by IOOF regarding its anticipated acquisition of MLC’s Wealth management business, might see one of the biggest reshuffles across the industry in terms of the largest financial planning groups by adviser numbers, with IOOF now set to stand on par or possibly overtake AMP .
In the announcement made to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), IOOF said that as of August, 2020, the group had close to 1,350 advisers. At the same time, MLC, as per adviser number sourced from NAB in June, 2020 had 538 financial advisers comprising aligned, including GWM Wealth Services, Apogee and Godfrey Pembroke as well as direct advisers including MLC Advice.
The firm said the acquisition would help create “a new IOOF” defined as number one advice business, with 1,884 advisers altogether and with $510 billion in funds under management, administration and advice (FUMA).
According to the Money Management’s TOP Financial Planning Groups’ survey, the five licensees operating under the IOOF banner had a joint number of planners close to 1,000 in mid-2019. This was partially a result of completion the acquisition in 2018 of the ANZ-aligned dealer groups which saw additional advisers licensed under RI Advice, Millennium 3, Financial Services Partners (FSP) and Elders Financial Planning (approximately 650 planners) being brought onboard.
At the same time, troubled wealth management giant AMP continued to see lower numbers of advisers although its four licensees had still together around 2,300 planners, which made AMP the biggest financial planning firm as of mid-2019.
However, since then AMP Financial Planning, a single biggest financial group in Australia alone saw a drop in the adviser number to below 1,000 from 1,400 at the start of 2019 and 1,255 in mid-2019, respectively. By comparison, the firm had more than 1,700 active authorised representatives who were financial planners as of 2015.
IOOF also announced yesterday it would seek to reduce its number of advice businesses from five to two, which would mean the closure of FSP, Executive Wealth Management and Actuate but, at the same time, advisers at those licensees would be supported to join the IOOF licensees of their choice.
Money Management will publish its final TOP Financial Planning Groups ranking on October 8.
