ClearView a clear winner

ClearView’s rapid growth in planner numbers and its high FUA per planner ratio has seen it named Dealer Group of the Year, writes Mike Taylor.

ClearView, the independent dealer group that grew out of MMC Contarian’s acquisition of Bupa Australia’s wealth management and insurance businesses, has been named Money Management’s Dealer Group of the Year for 2011.

The selection of ClearView was based on data collected as part of Money Management’s industry-leading Top 100 Dealer Groups survey, which was then subjected to a formula that weighed market growth, planner numbers and funds under advice.

In a year during which growth appeared to be dominated by the major institutions, ClearView emerged a clear winner in the non-institutional space based on its growth across all the criteria weighed in the Money Management process.

ClearView’s growth has been comparatively rapid, but in many respects reflects a strategy pursued by its managing director, Simon Swanson, which has involved consolidating a diverse set of insurance and planning assets under a single brand.

As well, as a former chief executive of CommInsure, Swanson has been successful in luring a number of key executives from the big insurer – the most recent being Todd Kardash as national sales manager.

One of the most recent reflections of the underlying ClearView strategy was the renaming of ComCorp Financial Advice to ClearView Financial Advice, which Swanson said was part of the unified brand strategy.

“A unified brand puts us in a much stronger position when dealing with our partners as we will be able to work with them using one name and one licence. We will also be able to offer our partners and their customers access to broader financial planning options through our combined planner network.”

While ClearView sits almost right in the middle of the Money Management Top 100 Dealer Groups survey in terms of both planner numbers and funds under administration, it propelled itself up the Dealer Group of the Year rankings on the back of its growth in planner numbers combined with its ratio of funds under advice per planner.

Last year’s Money Management Dealer Group of the Year, ipac Security Services, emerged as the runner-up in 2011 largely based on its failure to match ClearView’s overall growth.

Commenting on his company’s success, Swanson said that as important as ClearView’s personnel had been in the outcome, its success was in large part attributable to the unique distribution network, which had been afforded by its strategic partnerships with Bupa and credit unions.

“When we established ClearView we recognised that those strategic partnerships afforded us some unique opportunities and I believe we have been successful in leveraging that,” he said.

Swanson said that beyond the advantages that flowed from the distribution networks afforded by ClearView’s strategic partnerships, he believed its success was also owed to its structure as a life, wealth management and financial planning company.

He confirmed that ClearView would be looking to move further into the life advice market in the second half of this year and would be looking to broaden its life offering over time.

As well, Swanson pointed to the company’s distribution network and said that, as a long-time backer of scaled advice, he believed ClearView was well-placed to deliver such advice in the future.

"I have been a big supporter of scaled advice for years,” he said. “I have always believed there is a place for the provision of ‘light’ advice as mid-point to holistic advice."