Geoff Lloyd

Financial services leader, Geoff Lloyd, has been named Chair of Entireti, Australia’s leading provider of licensing and services to financial advice businesses. Entireti is the parent company of subsidiaries including Akumin, Fortnum Private Wealth, Personal Financial Services and Entireti Alliances.

Lloyd replaces Ray Miles, Founder of Fortnum Private Wealth, who has served as Chair since 2009. Miles will remain on the Board as a Non-Executive Director.

Lloyd is a highly experienced and respected business leader whose previous roles include CEO of MLC, CEO and Managing Director of Perpetual, and Group Executive, Wealth Management at St George Bank.

His current directorships include Chair of Stake and Chair of DASH. He is also actively involved in the philanthropic and not-for-profit sector as Chair of The Fathering Project and a Non-Executive Director of Team Australia Challenge.

At Entireti, Lloyd will lead the Board and provide strategic advice to Entireti Group CEO, Neil Younger, and the group’s senior executive team.

“We are excited to have Geoff join and lead the Board at this pivotal time for Entireti,” Younger said.

“We have completed some significant M&A transactions in recent years and we’re now entering our next phase of growth. A key focus for the business is broadening our services and capabilities, and pioneering the deployment of AI-powered technology to build an Australian-first digital ecosystem platform for advice businesses.”

“Geoff brings extensive experience to the Entireti Board and his insights are invaluable. A key goal for us is to drive the productivity dividend inside advice practices and the Board plays an important role in assisting us to execute our strategy and realise our ambitions.”

For the past year, Lloyd has consulted to Entireti on strategic planning, governance and strengthening the group’s operating framework.

Throughout his career, he has been a vocal advocate for the professionalism of advice and improving the affordability and accessibility of advice.

“I’ve observed the evolution of Entireti with the greatest admiration for Neil and his leadership team, and I’m inspired by their commitment to pursuing business improvements and stepped change for advisers and the broader profession,” Lloyd said.

“Entireti has grown significantly, both organically and through M&A, and I’m excited to go on this growth journey together and support the business to solve the biggest problems facing advice businesses and deliver quality advice to more Australians.”

Younger also acknowledged Miles’ enormous contribution to the group for the past 17 years.

“Ray is arguably the strongest proponent of professional advice and the need to build strong advice businesses that this sector has known, and his stewardship has been critical in getting Entireti to where it is today,” Younger said.

“We thank him for his counsel and support for the business and the broader sector, and we feel fortunate that he will remain on the Board and continue to play an ongoing role in the growth and success of Entireti.”

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Ray Miles

Australian Financial Services Licensee, Fortnum Private Wealth has announced that the group’s Founder and Executive Chairman, Ray Miles, will step down from executive duties at the end of the year, capping off a stellar 51 year career in financial services.

Miles, who will continue serving as Non-Executive Chairman, established Fortnum Private Wealth in 2010 to support professional financial advisers seeking an alternative to the large institutionally-owned dealer groups that dominated the landscape at the time.

Prior to that, he co-founded Associated Planners in 1989, after starting his career in life insurance with MLC and later Aetna Life & Casualty.

At Associated Planners, he led the group’s incredible growth from 13 advisers to 450 advisers nationally and over $18 billion in funds under management and advice. In 2004, he orchestrated the sale of Associated Planners to Challenger Financial Services Group for $99.9 million and its merger with Challenger’s Garrisons Financial Planning to form Genesys Wealth Advisers, serving as the group’s inaugural Chief Executive.

Commenting on Ray’s contribution to Fortnum and the broader financial services industry, Neil Younger, Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Fortnum Private Wealth said: “Ray is a pioneer of the advice industry. He built two exceptional businesses, effectively from scratch, and has championed the value of professional advice for five decades”.

“Ray has never shied away from expressing his opinions on key issues including the separation of product and advice, vertical integration and volume rebates. He has been a vocal supporter of higher education and training standards, and regulation that strengthens consumer protections.”

“As Non-executive chair, he will continue providing counsel to the Fortnum Board and leadership team, monitoring the group’s management and performance, and serving the interests of shareholders, all of whom are Fortnum advisers and staff.”

Miles said: “The industry has changed a lot in the past 50 years. After decades of regulation, which has been tough, the model has been reconfigured to put the client at the centre. The people at Fortnum live out that client-first philosophy day in and day out, and I am proud of what we have achieved so far and will continue to build”.

“I would like to thank and acknowledge Neil for his vision, commitment and support these past five years. When looking for a successor, you look for someone younger, smarter and capable of taking the business to the next level. Most importantly, you look for someone who will care for staff, advisers and clients as much as you do. You can’t tell that from day one and we’ve all seen someone come into a business and take a lot of money out but add zero value or destroy value.

“I didn’t want what happened at Genesys after I exited to repeat itself, which is why I stayed on as executive chair for the past five years. I am now more than confident to step down.”

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Mr Younger will work closely with Fortnum Financial Advisers managing director Joel Taylor, Innova Asset Management managing director Dan Miles and group chairman Ray Miles.

“Neil is a well-regarded, experienced wealth management executive with proven skills across a range of areas and we’re fortunate to be able to attract someone of his calibre to take Fortnum to the next stage,” Ray Miles said.

“Neil’s appointment enables me to step back from the day-to-day operation of the Fortnum group to focus on my core skill set of recruiting advisers and working with our practices.”

He added that while Fortnum had established a comprehensive, award-winning licensing and dealer services’ solution, considerable growth opportunities lay ahead and the business had plans to lead the evolution of the professional services advice firms.

“We believe in a complete end-to-end solution for clients and business life stage solutions for our advisers. Neil’s brief is to lead the ongoing development and implementation of those solutions,” he said.

Mr Younger, who has held senior wealth management roles at ANZ, BT Financial Group and Commonwealth Bank, comes to Fortnum with deep expertise in the areas of licensee management and advice. He also has considerable Board and Responsible Management experience.

“Fortnum is a quality business with considerable growth opportunities and I’m excited about working with Ray, Joel, Dan and the team to take the group forward,” Mr Younger said.

“As the industry continues to respond to evolving client expectations and businesses to a very different operating environment, advice specialist businesses such as Fortnum are well placed to evolve solutions and to lead. As a licensee with a client-centric mindset, and a proven record of helping professional services firms grow, Fortnum has a compelling offer and is in a strong position to continue to attract quality advisers.”

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Ray Miles

Stratus Financial Group is the winner of the prestigious ‘2016 Principal Practice of the Year’, presented at the Fortnum Financial Advisers Awards held recently.

The Fortnum Financial Advisers ‘Principal Practice of the Year’ Award recognises the Fortnum practice that demonstrates the highest level of financial performance, offers the best client value proposition, makes an outstanding contribution to its own community and engages deeply with the Fortnum dealer group in terms of participating in training, coaching and other business development, charitable and social events.

Fortnum Private Wealth Chairman Ray Miles said, “The ‘Principal Practice of the Year’ Award is a highly sought after prize as it recognises the Fortnum practice that is most committed to excellence not only in terms of technical knowledge and business development, but for its outstanding and genuine commitment to our client-first values”.

The Stratus Financial Group leadership team comprises Brett Cribb, Ross Munro and Steven Nicholas.

In accepting the award on behalf of Stratus Financial Group, Brett Cribb acknowledged that a whole-of-team commitment to fulfilling a pledge expressed simply as: ‘Making it happen’ is central to their success.

“As a team we are committed to ongoing education and remaining abreast of the continually changing landscape of financial advice. Collectively we are knowledgeable, experienced, well-coordinated and genuine in our endeavours and this enables us to offer the integrated and multi-layered services, that is reflected in our name, and that our clients value,” Mr Cribb said.

Stratus Financial Group delivers bespoke financial advice that is specific to their clients who include singles, couples and families; business owners, executives and professionals; and people heading towards retirement and aged care.
Mr Cribb says that while every individual’s circumstances are different, the common factor is complexity.

“Central to our theme of ‘Making it happen’ for our clients is to create clarity from complexity which enables confident, informed decision making,” Mr Cribb said.

Brett Cribb holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and a Diploma of Financial Planning. He is a Senior Associate with the Financial Services Institute of Australia and a Member of the Financial Planning Association.
Ross Munro is a Certified Financial Planner and holds a Bachelor of Commerce. He is a Chartered Accountant and a Member of the Financial Planning Association.

Steven Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Applied Science, Graduate Diplomas in Applied Finance and Investment, Financial Planning, and Agricultural Economics. Steve is an ASX Accredited Listed Product Adviser and holds SMSF Accreditation.

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Ray Miles

Leading-edge wealth management platform provider HUB24 (ASX: HUB) yesterday announced the successful completion of the partial successor fund transfer of the e-Clipse Super Fund to the HUB24 Super Fund, on behalf of the Fortnum Financial Group (Fortnum).

The transition included the transfer of $190m in assets on behalf of over 900 member accounts, being the majority of members in the fund. The remaining members are UK pension benefit holders, planned to be transitioned to HUB24 in due course.

The superannuation transfer followed the successful transition since March, of the e-Clipse Managed Discretionary Account (MDA) service, for which HUB24 was appointed administrator and custodian.

Fortnum is an independently-owned licensee with around 110 advisers across 56 practices in Australia, and has approximately $4.5 billion in funds under advice.

Late last year, HUB24 was appointed to develop a comprehensive investment platform solution customised to meet the needs of both Fortnum advisers and investors.

The white label e-Clipse Invest and e-Clipse Super services provide a full range of managed and direct investments. In addition, a suite of customised managed portfolios offered by Innova Asset Management has been created. This includes unique managed risk portfolios for risk-averse investors, using tools developed by Innova in conjunction with the Milliman Group, one of the world’s largest actuarial and financial risk management firms.

To provide clients with an integrated view of all their assets, the solution encompasses a non-custody reporting service as well.

HUB24 Managing Director Andrew Alcock said: “We’re really pleased we’ve been able to launch the Fortnum products and complete such a significant and complex transition in a relatively short time. It’s a testament to how well our two organisations are working together to provide a holistic solution, combining the very best technology with Fortnum’s innovative portfolios.

“There’s a growing appetite from independently-minded groups like Fortnum who value HUB24’s superior reporting and transaction solutions with best practice managed portfolio/SMA implementation. Our team is focussed on helping licensees and advisers adopt a comprehensive ‘best interests’ platform solution with market leading portfolio management functionality at its core.”

Ray Miles, Executive Chairman of Fortnum Financial Group, said: “We selected HUB24 after an extensive review of the market because it stood out as a professional organisation that could deliver the functionality, flexibility and service we needed.

“The transition process has been managed extremely well and we look forward to partnering with HUB24 in the future,” he said.

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Titled, And the walls came tumbling down: Why the industry must build a new foundation, the paper’s authors: Ray Miles, executive chairman of Fortnum Financial Group; Dan Miles, managing director of Innova Asset Management; and leading consultant Jim Stackpool, have called on the industry to separate financial product from financial advice; abandon all sales incentives; and build a new advice culture.

According to the paper, the majority of advisers are still distributors of financial product because there has been no fundamental change or improvement to the industry’s culture and practises in the last 20 years, despite numerous parliamentary inquiries and reforms. “In the aftermath a several recent advice scandals, it’s clear culture isn’t a passing fad,” Stackpool said.

“Culture is a fundamental driver of behaviour and trusted advice which is why the latest round of government reforms won’t propel the industry forward or lead to better client outcomes. Risk commissions, volume rebates, complex buyer of last resort arrangements, and other incentives including discounted bank fees, lower insurance premiums, transition payments, discounted licensing and dealer services, and free tickets to major sporting events still exist, which perpetuate a culture of selling and not of professional, objective advice.”

While quality, client-centred advice was flourishing in parts of the industry, Dan Miles, managing director of Innova Asset Management, said a deeper public understanding of the financial planning process, and what financial advisers did and didn’t do, was required in order to help consumers more easily identify rogue advisers.

The report also called for a clear separation between financial advisers and product distributors by labelling anyone who is paid based on the sale of a product or who ties the value of their business valuation to a product manufacturer’s BOLR contract to be called a product provider.

“The new generation of professionals are reinventing the advice process so it isn’t linked to product but is purely about uncovering a client’s true goals and objectives, showing them what’s realistically achievable given their situation, what they need to do to achieve their goals, how to manage risk, and keep them on track over the long-term to maximise the chances of success,” Dan Miles said.

The new paper, which is a follow-up to the controversial ‘The sky is falling’ paper, concludes by detailing how the industry can earn the trust of consumers.

In addition to being more transparent and spearheading sensible reforms, Ray Miles, executive chairman of Fortnum Financial Group, said the advice industry needed to focus solely on solving the client’s problems, and in doing so, would ultimately solve its own.

“Trust will happen, or begin to return if you believe we ever had it, when clients believe that financial planners are working in their best interests and the industry is structured to protect them, and it isn’t right now,” he said.

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Fingleson, managing director of one of Fortnum’s principal practices, Priority Advisory Group, was a founding director of Fortnum Financial Group.

Fortnum chairman Ray Miles thanked Fingleson for the instrumental role he played in the group’s ongoing development.

“Larry has made a significant and valuable contribution to the board over the past five years. His constructive outlook and approach has helped shaped Fortnum,” Miles said.

Fortnum is currently in the process of appointing an independent director, which it hopes to announce shortly.

Fingleson said his decision to resign from the board would allow him to bed down changes at Priority Advisory Group, which was in the middle of a radical business transformation project. It would also release him to focus on The Growth Project, which exists to invest in the leadership of the not-for-profit sector.

Last year Priority Advisory Group engaged consultants Peloton Partners to review the business and identify strategic opportunities with a view to boost adviser productivity and deliver improved client and stakeholder outcomes.

“We’ve been in business for 30 years and while many things have changed, there’s still enormous room for improvement which will drive greater efficiencies and deliver enhanced client outcomes,” Fingleson said.

“I’m working with Peloton Partners to implement the changes which will strongly position the business for future growth. From a personal perspective I’m passionate about The Growth Project because I want to help small non-profit organisations and charities succeed by providing mentoring and leadership development opportunities for key staff and management.”

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Mr Taylor will continue to report to Fortnum Financial Group executive chairman and co-founder Ray Miles, who will step back from the day-to-day running of Fortnum Financial Advisers to focus on leading the whole group which also includes research and asset consultancy Innova Asset Management and technology arm e-Clipse Online.

“Joel is extremely talented and hardworking and he gets the Fortnum culture. He has a strong rapport with the advisers, and it made sense for us to have a dedicated managing director for each of Fortnum’s three core businesses,” Mr Miles said.

“I’m fully committed to Fortnum Financial Group and Joel’s appointment releases me to focus on the group as a whole.”

Fortnum Financial Advisers has also appointed former Shadforth Financial Group regional practice manager and head of client relationship manager Elva Pica to the new position of advice implementation manager. Ms Pica will relocate to Sydney from Melbourne.

Former Commonwealth Bank operations analyst, Kristina Coffey has been appointed licensee relationship manager while experienced consultant, Jonathan Burke has joined as technical advice specialist.

In September, Fortnum Financial Advisers will also welcome managing director of Henry Financial Group Phil Little to the team as business growth manager. He will work closely with Mr Taylor to help practices improve their productivity and profitability as well as recruit new advisers.

“We are focused on partnering with advisers to help them deliver great advice to clients and continue growing their businesses,” Mr Taylor said.

“The Fortnum model is one where the interests of advisers and the licensee are fully aligned. It’s in everyone’s best interests for clients to receive quality service and advice that leads to improved outcomes. We also want to make sure that our advisers are at the forefront of the market in terms of professionalism and advice.”

Mr Taylor described the group’s expanded practice management team, which also included business coach Scott Charlton, as one of the “largest, strongest and most experienced teams in the country”.

“Many of the practices we attract are large and growing businesses with significant top line revenue and our goal is to help them achieve 15 per cent growth year on year by providing practice management services and training so they’re resourced and empowered to deliver of great advice,” he said.

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Ray Miles

Fortnum chose FirstWrap on the strength of its market-leading model portfolio functionality and Colonial First State’s strong commitment to non-aligned financial advice businesses.

Ray Miles, Fortnum Financial Group Executive Chairman, said: “Colonial First State understands that Fortnum values being owned by its staff and advisers, as well as innovation and collaboration. As a result, we have a mutually beneficial arrangement which, in turn, will enable Fortnum advisers to better service their clients.”

Mr Miles said FirstWrap was a good fit for Fortnum Advisers: “Fortnum stands for high quality advice and solutions for clients, backed by the highest quality portfolio tools and support. The FirstWrap platform aligns perfectly with what we want to achieve,” he said.

FirstWrap was named the number one platform for advisers in the Investment Trends Platform Benchmarking Report for the past three years.

Matt Harrison, Colonial First State General Manager of Distribution, said he was delighted that Fortnum had selected FirstWrap: “We have worked closely with the Fortnum and INNOVA Asset Management team to ensure the platform meets the needs of both their advisers and clients,” he said.

“Colonial First State has long regarded Fortnum as a high quality advice business. We look forward to partnering with Fortnum to support the growth of their advice and portfolio construction businesses,” Mr Harrison said

Fortnum Financial Group commenced business five years ago and currently has 31 Principal Practices and 91 advisers across the country.

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Ray Miles

Leading independently-owned financial advisory group Fortnum Financial Advisers will dump upfront risk insurance commissions and adopt a new remuneration model in a bid to self-regulate and ward off further legislative attack.

Fortnum advisers will charge a fee for service on insurance advice, or receive hybrid or level commissions from July 1, 2015, in a move similar to that announced by AMP last month.

Fortnum executive chairman Ray Miles said changes to adviser remuneration were necessary to ensure a sustainable insurance industry although advisers and AFS licensees were not to blame for the industry’s problems.

“Advisers are price takers not price makers. We don’t set the terms for upfront, hybrid or level commissions nor do we set the policy terms or premiums yet most of the blame for the industry’s sustainability issues are directed at the minority of advisers who churn,” he said.

“There are advisers who churn and they’re known to the insurance companies who continue to accept business from them so perhaps part of the problem is how executives are incentivised to deliver new business growth.”

Miles commended AMP’s recent decision to abandon hefty upfront commissions but warned the rest of the advice industry to follow suit or risk legislation which would make it difficult for advisers to profitably provide insurance advice and ultimately reduce the number of Australians who could afford insurance cover and advice.

Under recommendations made in the Trowbridge report, upfront commissions will be replaced by level commissions set at a maximum of 20 per cent of premiums and potentially an initial advice fee limited to $1,200. The initial advice payment would only be paid for personal advice not general advice, direct sales or group insurance.

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