Winchombe advisers defect

IOOF subsidiary Winchcombe Carson's Queensland franchise is to switch to Garrisons this week, managing director John Sikkman has told Money Management.

IOOF subsidiary Winchcombe Carson's Queensland franchise is to switch to Garrisons this week, managing director John Sikkman has told Money Management.

"We have come to an arrangement to employ the management team of four that ran the Winchcombe franchise," he says.

The franchise has been headed up by Dennis Bashford, who has had a long-term association with Winchcombe. Sikkman also is expecting a number of proper authority holders who are associated with Winchcombe to switch to Garrisons during the next few months. These and Garri-sons existing teams in Queensland will now be managed by Bashford in his new role as state manager.

Sikkman says his firm made no attempt to lure Bashford; the pair have known each other for many years.

"I have had a personal relationship with Dennis for more than 15 years and we used to catch up at industry functions," Sikkman says.

"Dennis is a very good manager and this will be a significant boost to our Queensland business."

IOOF managing director Rob Turner says the franchise will now revert back to Winchcombe Carson and a new state manager will be appointed.

"We will now run the business directly. This now gives us the oppor-tunity to develop our business in the state further," he says.

Turner says he expects the proper authority holders operating under the Winchcombe banner to stay, saying they had signed up only re-cently. Queensland was Winchcombe's only franchise.