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Financial Adviser Insights, Oct 26, 2023

Adviser Numbers This Week, Net Change of (-1), Moving Up From 15,702 - 15,701

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A net drop of just (-1) which hides a very busy week for many licensees.

Key Adviser Movements This Week:

  • Net Change of advisers (-1)

  • Current number of advisers at 15,701

  • Net Change of (-97) for Calendar YTD

  • Net Change Financial YTD +143

  • 26 Licensee Owners had net gains for 38 advisers

  • 24 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-38) advisers

  • 4 New licensees and 1 ceased

  • 4 New entrants.

  • Number of advisers active this week, appointed / resigned: 71

Growth This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Sequoia Group again top the week’s growth for licensee owners with 5 advisers. It appears that a self licensed AFSL, Poynter Hargraves Financial has called time on their AFSL and moved across to Interprac

  • Highview Wealth Solutions picked up 4 advisers, 3 of which switching from Akambo who’s losses appeared in last week’s post.

  • Castleguard Trust (Lifespan) up net 3 with two of the advisers switching from Fortnum

  • 2 new licensees both started with 2 advisers each, details provided to members

  • Diverger picked up net 2 advisers, both appointed at Paragem and the advisers switched from Fitzpatricks. The losses at Fitzpatricks were recorded in last week’s post

  • 20 licensee owners were up net 1 each including Centrepoint Group, Australian retirment Trust, and AIA Company.

Losses This Week - Licensee Owners

  • Poynter Hargraves Financial down by (-6) and effectively closed, i.e. down to zero advisers. As mentioned above, 5 of the advisers have moved across to Interprac, owned by Sequoia

  • Capstone down by (-5). 3 of the 4 new licensees this week commenced with advisers moving away from Capstone

  • Insignia down by (-4), losing 1 adviser each at Godfrey Pembroke and Shadforths and 2 advisers from RI Advice

  • Telstra Super down by (-3) and none of the advisers showing as being appointed elsewhere to date

  • 20 Licensee Owners down by (-1) each including Fiducian, Steinhardt Holdings (infocus) and Unisuper.


Financial Advisers - Authorised Representatives and CARs
This week, we take a look at the ratio of Authorised Representatives (ARs) to Corporate Authorised Representatives (CARs). This ratio is often viewed as a measure for the average size of practices held by a licensee.

Be warned, when you take a closer look at the information and how it plays out, it can be a bit confusing. For example, a financial adviser does not need to be an AR. Typically, financial advisers who work for a licensee that is predominately salaried are not ARs. Also, ARs do not have to be Financial Advisers. For example, they may be giving general advice and not personal advice. Having said that, most of the major licensees do have very similar numbers of financial advisers to ARs, except for licensees of salaried based advisers.

The chart below is from Dashboard 6 of Adviser Fast Facts. It has been filtered to show licensees belonging to the Financial Planning model and to have 100 advisers or more.

The overall average is 1.71 ARs per CAR. The two largest ratios belong to the AMP Group, with Charter at 2.75 and AMP Financial Planning at 2.62. The only other licensee above 2 is Fortnum at 2.23.

There are quite a few licensees averaging less than 1.5 with Synchron at 1.17 and Capstone at 1.31 being notable large licensees with lower ratios.

The lower ratios indicate that many advisers work in single adviser practices. This theme rings true even for ‘new’ AFSLs. For example, since Jan 1 , 2020, 425 new licensees have commenced under the financial planning model and 164 of them are single advisers licensees and 106 with 2 advisers (Data from Dashboard 3, Fast Facts).


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