Perpetual platform strikes deal with Count

PerpetualInvestments’ WealthFocus master trust is rapidly gaining traction in the market with 18 of the industry’s top 50 dealer groups signing up to use the service, includingCount Wealth Accountants.

Perpetual adviser distribution general manager Damien Crowley says the group, which unveiled the low-cost platform to the industry less than three months ago, is in the process of rolling the platform out to Count advisers, which is its largest client to date and the third largest dealer group with 1,100 advisers according to the 2003Money ManagementTop 100 Dealer Groups survey.

In addition to these sign-ups, the platform has also been approved by a large number of smaller one, two and five person dealer groups, according to Crowley.

“Eighteen groups have approved WealthFocus as a platform. These are 18 of the large to medium sized dealer groups as we also have a lot of the smaller two, three, five man shows writing business to it,” he says.

Perpetual has 13 business development managers pitching to the top 50 groups, and according to Crowley, the group is in ongoing discussions with 10 firms in addition to the 18 already signed.

“We’re ahead of schedule and are taking reasonable flows — in the region of $1 million a day. There’s been solid flows into both our options and the external manager options, which are getting some good support,” Crowley says.

While the group hasn’t set any inflow targets for this year, it does have a ball-park figure of reaching about $500 million by year end.

WealthFocus also has two platform account managers — one in Sydney and one in Melbourne — setting up the infrastructure between itself and the dealer groups.

“They’re responsible for putting WealthFocus information on dealer group web sites, dealing with commission arrangements and organising data feeds as well as the hands-on training of advisers and support staff,” Crowley says.