Advisers crown dealer group favourites

David Codey

ABN AMRO Morgans, Australia’s eighth largest dealer group by financial adviser numbers, has been named the 2008 Money Management/CoreData inaugural Dealer Group of the Year (Non-Bank).

On the banking side, National Australia Bank Financial Planning (NABFP) also received the prestigious award, taking out Dealer Group of the Year (Bank).

Both dealer groups achieved the highest ratings overall when combining the findings of three separate perspectives: how advisers rate their own dealer group, how they view other dealer groups, and how large but also productive each business is.

To obtain this information, independent researcher CoreData surveyed 1,302 advisory practitioners and overlaid the findings with the factual data drawn from Money Management’s 2008 Top 100 dealer groups survey.

Respondents rated the support levels of both ABN AMRO Morgans and NABFP highly.

ABN AMRO Morgans was also singled out by its advisers for its culture, which the dealer group’s director of adviser and marketing services, David Codey, said centred on the concept of individuality.

“I think the culture is very much about allowing individuals to express themselves and we encourage that,” he said.

“We don’t force every one of our advisers to be exactly the same in terms of how they relate to their clients and I think it’s that freedom to express themselves and their client relationships that sets us apart from most other dealer groups.”

NABFP, Australia’s seventh largest dealer group by adviser numbers, received a positive rating from its advisers in terms of their remuneration, which is fee-for-advice based.

The dealer group’s head of business development, financial planning, Iain Rogers believes the decision to make fee-for-advice mandatory for all NABFP advisers has been beneficial when recruiting.

“We have been doing some work in making sure … our move into fee-for-advice is recognised because we know that has a strong play on the types of quality planners we want to attract into our business,” he said.

“It is quite clear they are aligning themselves with us as we are taking that stance.”

Runners up in the awards were Professional Investment Services (PIS) on the non-bank side and St George Financial Planning for the banks.

Of all the dealer groups in this year’s survey, PIS advisers rated their remuneration the highest, while St George Financial Planning advisers gave a strong rating to the level of support provided by their dealer group.

Coinciding with the announcement of Dealer Group of the Year is the release of Money Management’s 2008 Top 100 dealer groups survey.

For the third year in a row, PIS, with its 1,436 advisers, maintained its leading position as Australia’s largest dealer group by adviser numbers.

Following closely behind it with 1,294 advisers is AMP Financial Planning (AMPFP).

However, when ranking the Top 100 by funds under advice, it is AMPFP that leads, surpassing PIS with $40,189 million compared to $18,200 million.

In terms of the growth of adviser numbers during the last 12 months, two dealer groups stand out for increasing their network by almost 100 advisers each.

Millennium 3 Financial Services is the fastest growing dealer group in this year’s survey with 94 new advisers and WHK Group is hot on its heels with the addition of 91 advisers.