Garrisons comes back home from across the Tasman

Late last November Garrisons managing director John Sikkema was a happy man. After a drawn out series of meetings over the ownership of the financial services group he presided over, Challenger International took the final bid and in turn the group.

Challenger is the first Australian company to own the Tasmanian financial services group outright.

In the early 1990s, Garrisons was partially owned by Mercantile Mutual, with the group's staff and executives owning the remaining stake. Between 1996 and 1999, Garrisons ownership was divided by the Tasman Sea, with New Zealand financial services group, Sovereign owning 45 per cent.

Despite the Tasman tussle, Sikkema has a vision for Garrisons as Australia's premier financial services group.

Challenger's acquisition gives Garrisons a large amount of capital to work with to fulfil Sikkema's vision.

"We wanted a large player to appear on the share register. We needed them to help share Garrisons vision," he says.

"Challenger is a very entrepreneurial company and a strong visionary company. They've got a flat structure and a very exciting business plan for the future."

Sikkema, a Dutch born financial planner, founded Garrisons in 1984 with a group of fellow financial planners. For more than 15 years the group has provided financial planning and retirement advice to Mr and Mrs average Australian through its franchising practises around Australia.

As a medium sized player in a niche market, Sikkema saw franchising as a prime opportunity to expand the size of his business.

"We saw the opportunity in re-occurring income as well as giving good advice to our clients," he says.

"We choose not to stick with one model, but instead, have administration systems with master trusts to service our planners and clients."

Garrisons currently has funds under advice of more than $2 billion. The group has 120 proper authority holders and more than 40 000 clients, including 15,000 from the group's master trust Synergy. Synergy which use to be used solely by

Garrisons' planners, but is now badged by Deakin Financial Planning, Quadrant Securities and Sherwin Financial Securities. It provides a range of services including low-cost superannuation, pooled superannuation, pension and investment services.

Quadrant Securities is a 50 per cent owned subsidiary of Garrisons. The securities group holds an unrestricted dealer's licence for recommending and placing securities.

At present Garrisons has more than 50 offices around Australia and is aiming to hit the 100 nationwide office mark by 2005. The group has a practise in every state in Australia. There are 20 in New South Wales, 15 in Queensland, 15 in Victoria, four in Tasmania and one in South Australia.

"We're looking to make our mark with key strategic sites around the country, and to do that we will be seeking to recruit established financial planning groups and individual planners that are looking to take their business to the next stage," he says.

In an attempt to reach the 100 office mark, Garrisons has made firm alliances with financial planning and accounting groups including Harts Accounting group in Queensland and the Money Planner group in Victoria.

Harts and Garrisons were partnered in 1998 following Hart's request for a badged product, which Synergy was offered. Money Planner were partnered with Garrisons in 1997.

Sikkema says to properly achieve his goal, Garrisons also needs the right people. At present the group is in the process of looking for talented advisers all around Australia.

The group has recently established a risk insurance division within its group based on life insurance broking. One of the group's main priorities is the recruitment of brokers to provide risk insurance to its clients.

To keep abreast of the changes of financial planning regulations, Garrisons' planners partake in quarterly training sessions. The sessions are a means of up-skilling the planner with information to help them keep up-to-date with legislation and new products. The group also has an annual conferences and provides its planners with publications and research packs - all accredited by the Financial

Planning Association (FPA).

The Tasmanian-based group's philosophy of corporate culture strongly emphasises honesty and integrity. Trust, according to Sikkema, is a must in the competitive financial services industry.

He says a strong commitment to high-quality service and ethical standards is another element that drives the development of the Garrisons network.

Sikkema says Garrisons has adopted a philosophy of partnering with professionals, enabling the group to have good association with accounting and legal firms.

"Our company profile is more about delivering more than we promise. Larger corporations do have stronger branding, and a stronger product profile compared to us, but we are quite happy to let our results do the talking," he says.

Proper authority holders - 120

Ownership - Challenger International

Research - Morningstar

Funds under advice - more than $2 billion

Established - 1985

Wrap accounts/master trusts - Synergy

Key figures - Chairman John Thomas, Synergy manager Simon Gillies

Next conference - October in Phuket, Thailand.

Position in the 1999 Money Management Top 100 - 30