Grant departs after Aust Unity restructure
AustralianUnity’s head of financial services, Simon Grant, has left the company after a restructure of its senior management team.
Grant was the senior manager for funds management, financial planning and the pharmacy business. He reported to group general manager Ian Ferres, while the general managers of those divisions reported to Grant.
Ferres toldMoney Managementthe company had decided to flatten its management structure and that resulted in Grant’s position being abolished.
Australian Unity had created this additional layer of management 15 months ago when Grant, who was company secretary, and chief financial officer Anthony Connon took on overseeing the various parts of Australian Unity’s business.
“The structure didn’t work and as a result, Tony Connon has reverted to being CFO and Simon decided to leave,” Ferres says.
“Now all the group managers report directly to me instead of some reporting directly and others reporting to Tony or Simon.”
The new management structure is now the same as that of 15 months ago, when former group managing director Mark Sibree was in charge.
Grant had been at Australian Unity for seven years and was responsible for creating the company’s compliance structure. At his time of leaving, he was working on Australian Unity’s FSR Licence, which has now been lodged.
In a separate move, Australian Unity has bought the Retirement Living Services Group, which will give it control of 10 retirement villages in New South Wales. Australian Unity will own four of the villages outright and operate the other six.
Ferres says some of the villages will be packaged up into an investment trust to be launched later this year. The trust will be looking to raise between $10 to $15 million.
Ferres says with an ageing population, the demand for retirement villages will continue to grow and Australian Unity sees this as a core business in the future.
Recommended for you
The FSCP has announced its latest verdict, suspending an adviser’s registration for failing to comply with his obligations when providing advice to three clients.
Having sold Madison to Infocus earlier this year, Clime has now set up a new financial advice licensee with eight advisers.
With licensees such as Insignia looking to AI for advice efficiencies, they are being urged to write clear AI policies as soon as possible to prevent a “Wild West” of providers being used by their practices.
Iress has revealed the number of clients per adviser that top advice firms serve, as well as how many client meetings they conduct each week.
