Tower sheds jobs, chops in-house planners
The New Zealand basedTowergroup has shut down its in-house salaried financial planning division, Tower Financial Consultants, and shed a total of 70 jobs across all business units in Australia as part of dramatic cost cutting measures announced yesterday.
The measures will see Tower reduce its recurring management costs in Australia from $102 million to $85 million.
Tower will also sell its online annuity business, AdviserBlue, merge the Tower Managed Funds stand alone business back into the wider Tower Australia group and downscale its corporate superannuation administration business as part of the changes.
The moves come only a week after Tower reported a $32 million writedown of its Australian financial planning business, Bridges Financial Services, to record a $68.9 million loss for the year to September 30, 2002.
The loss, the first ever for the trans-Tasman group as a listed company, compares to a $68.7 million profit for the year to September 2001.
Tower’s acting chief executive, Jim Minto, says the latest changes are part of a program to “more tightly focus” its Australian life and investment businesses.
The 70 job losses come on top of 50 positions already cut by Tower in October.
They also follow the departure of both Tower’s long standing group managing director James Boonzaier and group chief operating executive Ken Boag earlier this year.
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