ING seeks capital commitment
INGwill approach the ING Australia board in July seeking a substantial capital commitment from its joint venture partner to establish its desired dealer group models and to rebrand all but one of its financial planning businesses.
While the exact amount sought by ING is unable to be disclosed, ING Financial Planning head of equity distribution Michael Goodall describes it as “some serious money”.
Under the changes to establish its desired dealer group models, ING will set minimum performance levels for financial advisers.
Goodall says the proposed changes are anticipated to initially reduce the number of ING planners.
ING had expected to make an announcement regarding the rebranding of its dealer groups in April, however, this has now been pushed back to August or September due to the completion of the joint venture with ANZ.
Goodall says with this four-month delay, ING has expanded the branding project to include a re-evaluation of where its various dealer groups are positioned in the market and to analyse the relationship between the ING and ANZ distribution channels.
He says while ING has some 6,000 independent financial advisers on its books with a strong focus on this market, ANZ has 300 planners with more of a bank branch focus.
The ING dealer groups to be affected by the changes include Partnership Planning, Lynx Financial Services, Austadvisers, Superconcepts and RetireInvest, although the RetireInvest brand will remain.
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