Godfrey Pembroke planners leave
Buckingthe aggregation trend, 11 Godfrey Pembroke financial planners have left and set up their own dealer group, Vector Financial Consultants Limited.
The group is a 50 per cent joint venture between Financial Services Partners (FSP) and the 11 planners. FSP is also the parent group for NOW and Inscorp financial planning groups.
The reason for the move, according to the group’s managing director Rob Taggart, is the planners felt disillusioned with the nature of the business under the institutional owners National Australia Bank and MLC.
“If a large institution like MLC or NAB buy a group, they are naturally going to want financial planning consultants to support products or platforms they are interested in. The consultants felt they were losing their voice,” Taggart says.
The new planning business will specialise in the provision of investment advice and financial planning services to high-net-worth clients, small to medium-sized businesses and superannuation funds.
Taggart says the business was some 12-months in the making, with the planners approaching FSP chairman Dr Frank Wolf to express their concern over the relationship between NAB and MLC.
“They basically asked him, why don’t you give us a new home,” Taggart says.
According to Taggart, the transition from Godfrey Pembroke to Vector Financial Consultants has been smooth, with most offices retaining their premises and just changing the signage.
“Godfrey Pembroke has been very professional in their negotiations. However, you would expect them to be disappointed losing a group of this quality,” he says.
Adding another blow to Godfrey Pembroke was the number of clients who chose to follow the disgruntled planners.
“Overwhelmingly, the majority accepted the offer to go to Vector,” Taggart says.
He says this reinforces the philosophy that you can buy a planning business but you can not buy planners.
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