Whittaker Macnaught slowly disappears as ASIC cancels licence
The Whittaker Macnaught brand will retain a presence in the market but not as a separate licensee after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) cancelled the licence of the group.
Whittaker Macnaught was purchased by the Commonwealth Bank in April 2013 with its 26 planners required to operate under the Financial Wisdom licence held by the bank.
At that time a number of planners teamed together to form Eureka Whittaker Macnaught - an 11-planner business in Sydney and Brisbane led by Greg Cook - which currently retains the old name, with the remainder of the planners moving under the Financial Wisdom licence and brand.
A spokesperson for the CBA said it had requested the cancellation of the licence in the middle of 2013 after it merged the group into Financial Wisdom and would be phasing the Whittaker Macnaught brand out in the coming months.
A note on the Whittaker Macnaught website states the licence was “no longer effective from 28th June 2013” and offers contact details for planners based in Queensland.
CBA stated the recent cancellation by ASIC was related to the need to deal with compliance and administration issues surrounding the cancellation of the licence, including wrapping up membership of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
According to ASIC records, the Whittaker Macnaught licence was first registered on 14 February 2004 and was formally cancelled on 18 March this year.
At the time of purchase CBA Wealth Management Advice head of specialist licensees Pauline McFarlane said that operating Whittaker Macnaught under a separate licence “was not the most commercially viable way to deliver quality advice to Whittaker Macnaught customers in the long term”.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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