Number of Advisers decreased by (-319) from 17,601 to 17,282

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New Dashboards
We no longer provide detailed information of small licensees each week for free on the dashboards. We have all the details and happy to share privately.

Key Movements This Week:

• Net Change of advisers (-319). Down to 17,282 Advisers

• 27 Licensee Owners had net gains for 52 advisers

• 57 Licensee Owners had net losses for (-374) advisers

• 2 new licensees commenced and (-12) closed

• 5 Provisional Advisers (PAs) commenced.

Note: For more information visit the dashboards and ‘hover’ your cursor on each chart to see additional data points.

Summary
The net loss this week of (-319), took the net number of advisers down to 17,282. This is close to our forecast of 17,227 for Jan 2022,  post the FASEA November Exam results being published. The data suggests we have a few more advisers to fall because of FASEA Exam requirements.

For those who look at the dashboards, you may be puzzled to see the large loss this week of (-319) yet the Calendar Year To Date is only showing a net loss of (-85). This is due to licensees backdating losses to 2021. For our week on week update we take a snapshot of the current week and compare to the same snapshot of last week, to avoid issues with backdating. Licensees do have 30 days to report adviser movement.

Despite the large drop, which was expected, there are some positive stories beginning to emerge, such as the continued upward trend of Provisional Advisers. We have also seen a very large portion of the CBA advisers that were forced to leave last year being recruited elsewhere. 178 were ‘let go’ after November last year and 102 have gained new roles. 51 at AIA and 51 at other licensees. This indicates that licensees and practices are hiring advisers.

Growth This Week
Dashboard 1B - Licensee Owners. A very busy week of reporting with Count coming out on top with a net growth of 9 advisers, all formally CBA advisers.

Diverger (Easton) with 5 across their licensees; with 3 advisers moving to Paragem, away from The Wealth Network which is now down to zero advisers. GPS and Merit Wealth gained 1 each.  Castleguard (Lifespan) also up a net 5, with 2 Provisional advisers and 3 ex CBA advisers.

A new licensee commenced with 4 advisers (not shown, we have details), with those advisers moving from Fortnum.

Steinhardt Holdings (Infocus) up net 3 with all advisers from different licensees. Centrepoint Alliance also up by 3 with their new advisers also coming from different licensees.

Two licensee owners up plus 2 each and 19 up by 1 including Shartru, Fitzpatricks Group and a new licensee who moved away from Futuro.

Losses This Week
Th losses this week were dominated by SMSF Advisers Network who were down (-255) and down a massive (-380) for the financial year. This is not surprising based on our FASEA Exam analysis (made available to our paying clients), which clearly showed that the SMSF Advisers Network were struggling with FASEA Exam requirements.

The Fiducian Group is showing a net loss of (-24). However, we believe this will be temporary as advisers have ceased on one Fiducian AFSL, Australian Central Credit Union and we presume the majority will reappear on the main Fiducian AFSL soon.

Insignia down by (-11), most of those losses due to 8 advisers leaving RI Advice. Spark Group down by (-8), employing 1 adviser and losing 9, none of the 9 losses have appeared elsewhere.

Fortnum down by (-4) after losing a practice that went self-licensed. Sequoia also down (-4), losing 6 advisers but gaining 2.

A long tail thereafter with 12 licensee owners losing 2 advisers each and 37 losing 1.

We did see 12 licensees effectively close as they went down to zero advisers. 6 of those closing were in the Accounting – Limited Advice peer group, the same peer group includes SMSF Advisers Network.

Year To Date Data
See dashboard 2 – Still early days to be looking at this year’s results, but interesting to see for licensee owners with 50 or more advisers that Count top the list with net gains of 12, Castleguard (Lifespan) with 8 followed by Centrepoint and Diverger with 6 each. Worth noting that Count and Centrepoint did well in 2021 and have continued to push ahead this year - momentum is on their side.

Re losses YTD - You may note that NTAA, owners of SMSF Advisers Network are not showing a great loss for this year as their adviser losses were almost all back dated into 2021. If we show from Jan 1, 2021 to today the losses show Insignia at (-586) and NTAA at (-544).

By moving the dates back to jan 1, 2021 on Dashboard 3, - see image below, we break the details down into different Business Models (Peer Groups). We can see that the Accounting – Limited Advice business model has been smashed and is now less than half the size it was back on Jan 1, 2021, down by (-50.91%). SMSF Advisers Network, the largest licensee in this peer group is down by (-65.66%).

We predict that the Accounting - Limited Advice business model will continue to bleed as the year progresses. Known FASEA Exam pass marks indicate that they are still much lower than the other peer groups. They may make up a large part of the number of advisers who have failed twice but allowed to practice through to September. However, we suspect many will walk away from advice. We also suspect that a large number of the very small licensees will simply close.

The demise of the Limited AFSL for accountants may well be an opportunity for holistic advisers to reacquaint themselves with accountants.

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Have a great week