IOOF’s adviser numbers down


This week has seen the list of the highest declines in advisers’ numbers dominated by groups associated with IOOF with MLC -owned GWM Adviser Services, Bridges Financial Services and Lonsdale Financial Group having seen the departure of 13 adviser roles, according to data from HFS Consulting.
Overall, since 31 August, last year, IOOF appears to have lost 119 adviser roles.
Also, one of the smallest IOOF’s groups, Executive Wealth Management, which was last year announced as closing down as a part of IOOF’s strategy to scale back from five to three licensees, saw the departure of three adviser roles (bringing the total to seven advisers) to Oreana Financial Services.
Source HFS Consulting
This means that since August 31, 2020, the date when the IOOF first announced the acquisition of MLC in the statement issued to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), has lost 119 adviser roles while the number of advisers at MLC Group was down by 71 roles.
On top of that, earlier this week in its quarterly update to the ASX IOOF announced a drop in funds under management and advice of $0.4 billion to $202.4 billion for the quarter to 31 December, 2020.
“In summary not a good week of change for IOOF with current licensees losing advisers and GWM (MLC) also in the red,” HFS’ director Colin Williams said.
Further analysis of the ASIC Financial Adviser Register (FAR) showed that a number of roles this week moved down from 20,975 to 20,966 while the number of individual advisers was reduced to 20,629.
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