AFS ponders future direction

Australian Financial Services(AFS), which has been without a full-time managing director since August, will complete a full strategic review of the group’s operations by the end of January before seeking a replacement head for the business.

Chairman Barry Stephen, who has also been acting as head of the group since Geoff Moore departed after an eight year stint with the Melbourne-based dealer group, is coordinating the review.

“We’re undergoing a strategic review to establish the direction of the company and therefore the required qualities of the person we will later appoint,” Stephen says.

However despite conducting a review of the business, which is 37 per cent owned by Zurich with adviser firms accounting for the remaining equity, Stephens does not rule out the possibility that the business may be sold.

The firm, which Stephen says operates as a co-operative and has in excess of $2.5 billion in funds under advice, has over 100 authorised representatives operating out of more than 50 offices across Australia.

Stephen says the board has been meeting regularly and a number of strategic options have already been ruled out by it, however he does not reveal the specific nature of these options.

AFS came into being in March 1997 as a co-operative of advisers, with the idea of forming a co-operative dealer group stemming from bringing together two disparate groups of advisers - financial advisers and life advisers.