According to an update from platform provider OneVue released to the market on Wednesday, the sale of Madison Financial Group is “on track to complete in May”, with receivers expected to select a preferred bidder by the end of this week to proceed to exclusivity.
OneVue took control of Madison in February after receivers were appointed to its parent company Sargon, and the platform provider subsequently appointed receivers to holding company SCAH1 to secure its interest following amounts owed to OneVue by Sargon.
It also secured Sargon’s holdings in Sequoia Financial Group, which it has subsequently sold for $4.3 million.
In its latest update, OneVue further stated that administrators were making progress with the sale of Sargon’s operating businesses and the platform provider expected the sale to be finalised “imminently”.
The platform provider also said it was assessing its options to recover further amounts owed from Sargon parent company Sargon Capital, including legal actions against current and former company directors in relation to the sale of its Diversa and CCL Trustee businesses.
Sargon purchased the businesses from OneVue for $43 million, but only settled $12 million of the purchase price before the company fell into administration.
Its bewildering what the hell all these fees going to dealer groups pay for. Clients want advice from the person sitting in front of them not from some fwit at dealer group HQ whom has never provided advice before. They want their adviser to use their education, training and experience to be used to help them!
Individual licencing is the only way forward.
IOOF will be the eventual winning bidder in the sale.
This licensee system is fundamentally flawed. When are we going to move to individual licencing?
Individual license is not the long term solution. The major holes that need to be addressed are creating efficiencies through scale and succession planning. The single minded focus of AMP and MLC on their trustee power and responsibility makes them a very poor business partner for advice businesses yet both claim to have strategic direction in advice ? Any business that puts themselves before their customers are doomed and AMP and MLC don’t seem to understand who their customer is ? What is alarming is how much these executives want to pay themselves without understanding their own value proposition ? Collaboration with advisers is the key to success but we are sadly lacking in institutions to fill that void. In the interim advisers are going it alone until a business partner emerges.
Agree it’s flawed. But the solution is practice based AFSL licensing. There already is an element of professional standards based licensing for individuals, through the FAR.
AFSL licensing extends into business issues such as capital and cashflow, PI insurance, IT systems, recruitment, training, marketing etc. That is best implemented and controlled at a practice level, although in many cases it might be a single adviser practice. It cannot be effectively done by a “dealer group” that has minimal day to day visibility and control over separate businesses. “Dealer groups” are an artifice for inhouse product distribution and should be abolished.
I agree, why not have practice based AFSL licensing through a partnership structure where the partnership is liable. It would be difficult for a single adviser practice to self license, but likely push those practices to merge to form mid size practices. Each partner would then be keeping and held accountable by the other partners as a form of self regulation.
Single adviser practice licensing may not be as hard as you think. It’s definitely not as hard as the dealer group spruikers make it out to be! The last ASIC figures I saw had about 1000 single adviser licensees, and growing every day. Many have been doing it successfully for years.
There are a number of myths propagated by dealer groups to try and dissuade advisers from this path. They include:
– ASIC only wants to deal with large dealer groups because it’s easier for them
– It’s impossible to get PI insurance as a single adviser practice
– You need to be part of a large dealer group to get technology support
Don’t worry these are all myths. Dealer groups are not actually interested in facilitating the advice process. It is just a means to an end. They are really interested in maximising inhouse product revenue.
Agree. Most dealer groups either lose money or are lucky to break even. So, their business models must, by necessity, involve some other sources of revenue or some other “angle”. These sources of revenue are not necessarily aligned with the AR / CAR’s obligation / BID owed to our clients. In fact these “other means of generating revenue” are (if Advisers are honest with themselves) not in the best interests of the Advisers clients. They are in the best interests of the Dealer Group owners / principals / senior management.
This is why this model is fundamentally flawed and until we move to a system of individual licensing – Advisers will continue to be seen as and treated as, a distribution arm for the Dealer Groups – whilst being beaten over the head by ASIC and regulated to an early grave. Whilst the aforementioned parties retire to their Southern Highlands farms.
The day adviser can cut out the middleman (licensee) the better it will be.
umm no they dont want to. Because a Licensee provided protection when the proverbial hits the fan. Advisers can leave the Dealer holding the can. Who is going to resolve the complaints? The adviser. No chance. I know, you may not have complains, but AFCA get 10s of thousands of advisers, so there are plenty that do. Anyhow, there is a push to that, but ASIC also have an interest in the Licensee model, can blame the Dealers and get them to do the work and cost.
Honestly, the only groups that really matter in this space anymore are AMP and IOOF.
LOL
Funny, but true.