Butterworth move not based on latest departures

A decision from former DKN chief executive Phil Butterworth to leave the group following a merger with IOOF to join BT Financial Group was made regardless of whether other DKN and Lonsdale executives would also make the switch, Butterworth said.

BT separately looked after the appointments of former Lonsdale chief executive Mario Modica, former Lonsdale executive director Kon Costas, and former DKN executive director of distribution Andrew Rutter, he said. "I was going to be taking on the position whether they joined or not, [it] was a standalone decision," he said.

Butterworth will start at BT in March as the managing director of a new business unit that will also include Modica from May, as well as Costas and Rutter who both start in February, BT stated. All four appointments were announced by BT yesterday.

Butterworth said the full strategy of the unit won't be released until the new team is on board, but will involve using the combined scale of the BT Group to deliver solutions to practices that will help them in the rapidly changing wealth management environment. 

It will still be very much an adviser-focused role, Butterworth said. "That's our passion, delivering to practices, and I'm really looking forward to the new opportunities ahead," he said.

"Setting up a new business unit within a large institution will have a lot of pluses in regards to the scale and opportunity that you can leverage, as opposed to in a smaller environment such as DKN," he said.

"The challenge for the institutions is to be able to still customise and deliver the solutions that practices need and still be nimble. The BT Group have indicated they can still do that and have a fantastic innovative culture that we can leverage off."

BT Financial Group's general manager of advice, Mark Spiers, said a highly disrupted market is driving many financial advisers to reconsider their future.

"Financial advisers who want highly successful and sustainable businesses are now looking at who they should partner with for the next decade and beyond," he said.

"While we continue to attract financial planners into our salaried workforce to ensure our banking customers receive quality financial advice, we want to ensure we are best positioned to continue attracting those financial advisers into our aligned channels who want to partner with a high quality brand with sound strategies and an unquestionable focus on clients and leadership."