Securitor aiming for growth

BT-owned dealer group Securitor is targeting growth, looking to hit 600 advisers within the next three years, according to BT’s head of dealer groups and licensee select, Neil Younger.

Speaking at the annual Securitor conference, Younger declared the global financial crisis (GFC) “dead and buried”. He added that for firms that had been focused on maintaining a client base through the GFC, now was the time to be building their businesses.

Younger said it was a realistic target for Securitor to build its current base of 470 authorised representatives to 600 in the next 2-3 years.

Within the changing regulatory environment, smaller firms would struggle to survive without the resources that came with the infrastructure of a larger dealer group, which would lead to additional consolidation, he said. Additionally, individual advisers would be more likely to seek the security of larger dealer groups.

“What we’re seeing is planners looking for true dealership from dealer groups. We’re also seeing planners looking for capability in the practice development environment which we’ve evidenced — so we’re seeing a number of people looking at joining our business,” he said.

“We think we’ll see additional consolidation within the planner market to institutional-based dealer groups. We see that because we think the resourcing capability around quality advice frameworks, corporatised structures — you need that scale to be able to deliver.”

Younger added: “Growth would come from bringing specialist capability into the business, bringing planners through the ranks of their own business — for example, in paraplanner type roles into junior adviser type roles. The second component is we’ll attract from the market the players that are less capable than we are of delivering on a promise.”