In a statement released to the market on Thursday, Yellow Brick Road said it had completed the first part of the sale of its wealth division to Sequoia Financial Group.
The company said this involved the transfer of a large part of YBR’s adviser force to the licence of Sequoia subsidiary Interprac Financial Planning, the sale of advice and life insurance recurring revenue streams to Interprac, a “first completion payment” and the transfer of a number of operational staff to Interprac.
YBR said the second part of the process was due to occur on 30 April, which would involve the transfer of its remaining advisers to Interprac, the finalisation of a small number of advisers’ rights to income from their client book to other transferring YBR advisers or advisers of Sequoia Group, the finalisation of the sale of YBR Super, the making of a second completion payment and the finalisation of a cross-referral agreement between the parties.
“Consistent with the ASX announcement dated 27 December 2019, the remainder of the purchase price is payable to YBR in three equal half-yearly payments following the second completion date,” YBR said.
“The final purchase price will be determined once the transfer of the YBR Wealth advisers has completed and other potential adjustments made.”
YBR executive chairman Mark Bouris said the completion of the sale of the wealth business was in line with the company’s strategy to focus on the mortgage sector.
“We are confident that YBR’s advisers will benefit significantly from the support, guidance and future opportunities provided by Interprac, so that they can deliver the very best advice possible to their clients,” Mr Bouris said.
Seems a good solution for the wealth advisers to be with a wealth business and the mortgage franchisees and brokers to be with a specialist mortgage business
Under the current regulatory environment mortgage brokers can sell add on junk insurance without any need for an AFSL, or any of the consumer protection compliance that goes along with it. It’s a lucrative add on for mortgage brokers, because insurance can easily be positioned to naive borrowers as a necessary prerequisite.
This is one of the many perverse outcomes of regulators and the government aggressively persecuting licensed financial advisers, while letting unlicensed providers get away with whatever they like. No wonder YBR is getting out of licensed financial advice.
Astounding that Brokers can just recommend that junk. What makes Brokers any different to Advisers now that they have their own best interests duty!
Mortgage brokers must be licensed under an ACL, and must comply with a Best Interest Duty. But only for loans!!
That’s why so many of them sell insurances as well now. There’s no compliance, because insurance falls outside the scope of an ACL. Insurance (and investment and superannuation) compliance is only enforced against AFSL holders.
Bureaucratic madness is every increasingly to be so out of touch with reality.
Ever heard of an even playing field ASIC ???