Top of the dealer group tree this year
ProfessionalInvestment Services (PIS) and its leader Robbie Bennetts have had a year tinged with controversy, but these hurdles have been overcome and PIS now holds pride of place as the country’s largest financial planning dealer group.
The first obstacle PIS faced was its involvement with the failed Westpoint group of companies.
Statistics compiled at the time reported 23 of the 1,329-strong dealer group had placed a total of $19.2 million of their clients’ funds in the Western Australian company’s mezzanine lending products.
In addressing the issue, Bennetts promised to examine each client’s case on its own to ensure that “if we’ve got a case to answer then we’ll answer it, and if we haven’t, we’ll defend it”.
The episode also drove PIS to review its level of exposure to any one manager in order to limit the damage a situation like Westpoint could inflict on the dealer group.
Next it was revealed in the media that PIS was still taking part in the practice of rewarding its advisers with free airfares and accommodation to the dealer group’s annual conference, usually held overseas, on the basis of product sales for the year.
This practice flew in the face of the code of conduct implemented by the Financial Planning Association on January 1 of last year that prohibited these so-called ‘soft dollar’ forms of remunerations from its members.
Bennetts again showed he was able to recognise the gravity of a situation that could damage his dealer group’s reputation and that he was prepared to rectify the situation when in July this year he scrapped the controversial practice.
Despite these two significant setbacks, Bennetts has still been able to attract advisers to his Queensland-based dealer group.
In 2006 alone he was able to grow the number of authorised representatives operating under the PIS banner by 135.
This boosted the overall number of planners in the PIS advisory network to 1,329, taking it beyond AMP’s total of 1,259, and making it the largest financial planning group in Australia according to MoneyManagement’s Top 100 dealer group survey.
The organisation’s growth has recently prompted Bennetts to foreshadow a stock exchange listing for PIS in the near future.
He has anticipated the float will net $800 million and has predicted March 2008 as the date for the initiative.
Bennetts has admitted the company is already laying the groundwork for the move and is optimistic about the valuation it will receive nearer the March 2008 date, after the additional value of PIS’ acquisitions in Asia and Canada made this year are fully taken into account.
— Darin Tyson-Chan
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