Terminated AMP adviser David Haseldine, who detailed his experiences with the institution in an XY Adviser podcast last year, told ifa he had started the project – titled Real Stories from AMP Financial Planners – after receiving an overwhelming response to an interview with Fairfax Media last year over AMP’s handling of its advice business transformation.
“It was that publicity that made the phone start ringing [from other advisers], and the realisation was they weren’t just doing it to me, they were doing it to many more,” he said.
“Because I hadn’t signed any of the non disclosure stuff AMP put in front of me, there was little they could do to make the situation worse, so I could either sit back and do nothing or I could try and bring some social justice to the situation.”
Mr Haseldine has interviewed 19 former AMP advisers so far on their experiences inside the wealth giant and during their termination process, with 44 per cent saying they had been under the regular care of a mental health professional, while 22 per cent said they had had suicidal thoughts as a result of the process.
His initial data suggests the cohort of planners have walked away with an aggregated debt to AMP of more than $3.5 million, and have received total payouts of around $3.8 million, compared with the around $20.3 million their combined businesses were worth before the institution’s decision to write down BOLR values in mid-2019.
Mr Haseldine said common themes in his discussions with the advisers so far had been an apparent lack of quality in the client registers they were originally sold by AMP, and a lack of support to help their practices, which were often heavily commission-based, transition to new business models.
“It’s probably about an average of 30 per cent of the client books they bought didn’t exist or were un-contactable,” he said.
“Generally we all bought a register that was a spreadsheet with policy numbers and account numbers, there were no files.
“AMP also only bought out processes and compliance standards in relation to fee for service in January last year, and they didn’t have the systems to generate reliable FDSs.
“You then had some old businesses going back 30 years which were predominantly grandfathered commissions, and AMP turning off those commissions nine months early made life extremely difficult for those that were still trying to convert enough of their client base to fee for service to make their practices viable.”
Mr Haseldine said since launching the data project, he had received many further inquiries from current and former AMP planners wanting to tell their stories, and planned to add to the statistics collected over time.
“I’m getting people contacting me from inside and outside AMP, including the planners that AMP want to keep,” Mr Haseldine said.
“The only thing that is going to restrict the numbers of stories appearing there is my time – if it’s going to have any sort of credibility, I’ve got to do the research myself and make sure everything stacks up. Without any more coming in, there’s probably another three months’ worth of work there for me to sift through.”
A spokesperson for AMP said decisions made around the advice business had been “difficult but necessary” and that the institution was providing support to advisers who had been terminated as a result.
“The financial advice industry has transformed dramatically in the past few years, including the removal of grandfathered commissions and new mandatory education standards,” the spokesperson said.
“Within this environment, AMP has made difficult but necessary decisions to ensure we adapt and continue to have a strong, viable, fee for service based advice business for clients. We recognise the changes have been challenging for some advisers, particularly those who sourced a significant portion of revenue from grandfathered commissions.
“For many years AMP has provided guidance, training and education resources to help advisers deliver high quality service-based advice. We’ll also continue to provide support to our advisers to help them manage the transition, including access to mental health services and AMP Bank working with advisers to address their unique financial circumstances, so fair and reasonable outcomes can be reached where possible.”
If this article raises any emotional or psychological issues for you, you can utilise the below resources:
Lifeline, 13 11 14, www.lifeline.org.au
Suicide Call Back Service, 1300 659 467, www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au
MensLine Australia, 1300 78 99 78, www.mensline.org.au
It’s a sad situation. but still no sympathy for AMP planners.
Really? Why no sympathy to AMP advisers?
Thanks for your work David
Talking about AMP and ethics like talking about black and white as these two things are totally foreign to each other. 2018 unearthed their shadowy way of doing business and who there they found to shift their blame on … their ground force, the people who made this company great at one stage and brought it to its former glory? People got smashed by this bone crashing machine, retirement savings robbed of, family homes lost lives destroyed. What is most surprising thing in all of it is they got away with everything bear no responsibility for any of their action.
Yes amp and there different audit standard . Bola audit to mark your business down and tax you on the way out . The bola audit standards don’t even exist in a bau audit or a look back audit . So u can pass a look back audit pass bau audits then they fail you on the way on a bola audit by coming up with new standards writing your business down to minimal and giving you a large bill at the end and leaving you in debt then selling your business to an amp planner staying in the network usually a large practice that has done a special deal with amp what a great ethical management team amp are
I have had no support from AMP regardless of what they are claiming above
What is the biggest disgrace of all is that the many organisations and politicians informed of this unfolding tragedy sat back and did nothing. The Licensees and Big 4 banks created the mess yet have no ethical standards or rigid checks and balances placed on them. This allowed them to turn around and try to blame planners who did nothing except try to work put what the correct compliance procedures were in a world where no one even knew, yet alone trained them correctly. As financial planners have all been painted as thieves and bad guys, of course no one cared that they were being robbed and discarded. The industry has been destroyed, I now use my old CFP certificates as toilet paper.
It will be very hard for any adviser to ethically recommend any product from the banks or AMP. They’ve been by far the biggest culprits in giving the industry a bad name…..and leave us with a huge compliance nightmare and ASIC costs to clean up their shite!
AMP’s treatment of their advisers is absolutely disgusting….sad to see a once decent mutual brought down by the grubs running it for too long.
I really would like the minister for small business have a hard look at this – talking about ethics courses and moral hazards – AMP – like this has been the form for years
This behaviour is not only applicable to AMP. Other institutions have thrown advisers under the bus and have not given a shit about an advisors mental health. Only to suit their own agenda in cleaning up the mess which they created over decades. Parasites the lot of them……funnily enough the people overseeing this mess are failed advisors themselves.
I don’t understand why the media keeps going back to AMP for “comment”. AMP has not provided help to terminated planners, in fact it is to the contrary, they used their position of power to force terminated planners into horrible situations. If this was a husband/wife relationship someone would be going to jail for extreme abuse!
We need some more strong words followed by a quick handball to anyone else so long as it’s not her from Senator “Dr Do-Little” Hume.
David, are you able to include the Bridges BOLR clients in your register as some significant mental health issues have also arisen from these similar experiences with IOOF?
in regards to IOOF, they are going the same way as AMP unfortunately. The Oct fees increase is going to 270% more than my current fees.
David Murray, his Board, Frank Ferrari, Alex Wade and David Akers and Brian George need to be held to account for destroying so many good people and their families. They have caused health and financial damage which will last a lifetime. Hope they can sleep at night.
And yet they wont be…
They NEVER are.
What about Craig Meller, Craig Dunn, Rob Caprioli and Michael Guggenheim? All played a part while at AMP but are sleeping very well in their multi million dollar houses, not having to answer one bit to ASIC.
Agree, except for Michael Guggenheimer. He was always a planners’ man and helped our business (now retired) a great deal
This is really sad. It is so hard to maintain a viable financial planning business with constantly increasing costs and moving goal posts.
AMP still spouting the same diatribe (rubbish) sadly they believe their own storytelling. It is nothing short of an Ethical disgrace what they have done to their staff and advisers, people have taken their own lives, let that sink in for a minute, yes suicide. Mr Ferraro and the Board of AMP should hang their heads in shame, guess Mr Ferraro will walk away with a golden handshake after the massive damage he has helped cause. Once again leaving the advisers that are left to from the Angst and concern from their clients. Such a pity to see what was once a wonderful organisation go down with such poor management and directorship. Pity the media doesn’t take the Directors and senior management to task over what they have done, disgraceful.
De Ferrari didn’t cause any of this. He just told the truth to his commercial sales force.
The issue here isn’t so much the grandfathered commission payments, its the fact that AMP sold books to advisers (through AMP bank at almost un-commercial interest rates) at the prior 4 x revenue BOLR amount right up until they decided to change the multiple they apply to these books.. leaving the buyers with the higher, original amount of debt against an asset that that more then halved in value. Then, on top, they tap a whole heap of them on the shoulder and say ‘you’re out’ and we’re calling in the debt… that it unconscionable conduct in my humble opinion.
I hear you, but my humble opinion is that anyone paying anything like 4x for a book including anything other than the most highly engaged, loyal, fee for service clients is making a bad commercial business decision, one which borderlines incompetent if an LVR of anywhere above 70% is used to buy said book, and one which is simply stupid if an PVR above 50% is used while financing through the seller themselves.
I 100% disagree with the behaviour of AMP through this whole process, however I’d argue that the end result has simply been to largely weed out the planners who were perhaps ill-equipped to be running their own business in the first instance.
Really?
You have no idea…so you think AMP did this to weed out ill equipped FP who shouldn’t be running their own business…..go get a life…. there are planners who were top planners, winning industry awards for planner of the year, doing pro bona work, paperless office for a decades, systems and processes in place that created an efficient and effective business, they were profitable in their own right, and highly respected individuals in the industry and in their local community, and with undergraduate and post graduate degrees (probably more than you have and not from an online open exam style, a real unverisity). They were not weeded out, they were targeted for AMP’ s own financial gain and how can AMP make a decision to terminate a practice without even visiting the practice or even checking the practices financial position. AMP drew a line in the sand and it didn’t matter who you were or how successful you were, you were out. I can also say, if the BPM had it out for you and you were border line, ie what ever that revenue figure in the sand was, if the BPM didn’t like you, you were out.
So Mr Anonymous, tell us how successful you are and what your cornflakes box qualifications are! Shame on you!
I think Mr Anon is doing better than you. Enough common sense to stay clear of AMP.
AMP weren’t even selling books. They were only selling the right to service their book. People were willing to pay because it was a mutually beneficial (although ethically questionable) relationship. AMP were only ever in it for themselves. Now they have a fresh CEO who has prior experience at screwing the FP staff (and business) for personal and corporate gain.