‘Early signs quite positive’ after MLC acquisition: IOOF

On Thursday, following the release of IOOF’s financial year 2021 results, chief executive Renato Mota said the “early signs are quite positive" in relation to the MLC acquisition.

“It provides some significant opportunities from scale and a real competitive advantage in terms of capability and our ability to drive down the cost to serve,” Mr Mota said.

“As an integrated business, what we’ve built is a really mature approach to supporting change.

“Whilst we’re going through a lot of change at the moment, it does give us confidence that we’ll be able to meet our commitments with respect to simplification.”

IOOF reported MLC AUM of $175 billion and a synergy run rate of $12 million p.a. achieved by 30 June.

The company believes it is “on track” to deliver an additional synergy run rate of $80-100 million by the end of the FY22.

The acquisition of MLC, as well as ANZ P&I last year, now sees IOOF boast 2.2 million clients, with 1,975 financial advisers onboard.

Mr Mota said IOOF has a “high degree of confidence” to meet net flow positive goals in relation to its self-employed advice models.

“There is a continued opportunity to firstly extend that logic and extend that desire across the MLC advice businesses,” he said.

“But importantly also, to challenge ourselves to solve the problem of the unaddressed advice market.”

Mr Mota’s comments come after IOOF confirmed the departure of 135 advisers as it gears up for its new transformation program, Advice 2.0.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.