Non-aligned licensee sets ambitious growth target

Launched by Phil Alexander, a former executive at TAL-aligned Pivotal (now Affinia), and compliance expert Neal Hornsby, a former CBA and Minter Ellison staffer, in late 2013, the group has now added to its network, with 19 authorised reps joining since inception.

The group expects to have 30 authorised reps by March 2015 and another 20 by the end of 2015, with a number of practices currently being on-boarded.

Speaking to ifa, Mr Alexander said the practices have joined separately rather than as a bloc from any one dealer group and that they have come from a mix of institutional and non-institutional backgrounds.

“Those moving from the institutional space, simply see it as a career development,” he said.

“The adviser has [typically] come to the point in their career where they prefer to provide advice as opposed to selling [a] product.

“Those joining from the non-aligned space are doing so to make their business align more so with the values of the FOFA legislation and the future direction of the industry.”

Many of those leaving institutional environments have indicated their previous licensee is not reflective enough of the post-FOFA fee for service mentality.

Mr Alexander also suggested the experience of Avalon’s management team, as well as its open and “simple” APL, partly account for its early success.