Bailey rated as country’s best adviser

Melbourne-based Kevin Bailey has been rated Australia’s top financial adviser under a new system of ranking planners released by the Adviser Ratings group this week.

Bailey, the principal of The Money Managers group and a board member of the Financial Planning Association (FPA), took out the top spot narrowly ahead of four other advisers — Greg Gunter, Ray Griffin, Tony Walker and Philip Guest.

Gunter and Griffin, both principal’s of the Gunter Doyle Griffin dealer group, were rated the best advisers in Queensland and rural New South Wales respectively. Walker, a principal of Walker Partners, and Guest, a principal of the Guest McLeod group, were rated the best advisers in their respective regions, the Gold Coast and Sydney.

“There are a number of advisers that are in the same ballpark, but Kevin Bailey was just above the others,” Adviser Ratings chief executive David Child says.

Adviser Ratings ranks financial planners based on an in-house audit and responses to a 22 page questionnaire.

Each adviser receives a score out of 100 under the ratings system, which is overseen by a panel of experts including Child, researcher Graham Rich, industry analyst Paul Resnik and former Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) employee Brett Walker.

Financial planners who chose to be rated must pay a processing fee of $275 as well as an annual registration fee of $275, but the service is currently free to consumers who sign up to access a pool of information on rated advisers.

Bailey says consumers should use the rating as another measure of an adviser’s credentials, on top of a valid licence, membership of a professional body and an internationally recognised designation.

According to Child, several hundred advisers have so far achieved a score under the rating system.

However, he says up to 34 per cent of those who have applied for a rating have failed after being found not to have met the minimum adequacy requirements.