Insignia says it’s brokering M&A transactions to retain sold client books

In its quarterly update filed with the ASX, Insignia Financial said it had suffered a substantial level of departures but added that it had nevertheless maintained its market share over the past 12 months.

Insignia maintained active advice service relationships with 1,570 financial advisers as at 30 September, which represents a quarterly reduction of 30 advisers.

Adviser losses were primarily from the self-employed channel, with Insignia acknowledging that a number of practices are opting out primarily through selling their client books or transitioning to a self-licensed model.

While this is an existing problem for the firm, it explained action is being taken to retain clients.

“Insignia Financial continued to broker internal M&A [merger and acquisition] transactions, retaining some of the sold client books with pre-existing practices in the Insignia Financial licensees,” Insignia said.

Insignia’s funds under administration (FUA) stood at $201.6 billion at the end of September, with positive net inflows of $136 million offset by market decline of $3.0 billion and pension payments of $753 million, leading to an overall reduction of $3.6 billion.

The firm’s funds under management (FUM) were similarly down 1.8 per cent to $90.7 billion.

Commenting on the quarter, Insignia Financial chief executive Renato Mota said: “Insignia Financial has again seen positive platform flows, with net flows in the first quarter $1.0 billion higher than the same period last year.

“Pleasingly, this improvement is widespread and has been seen across IOOF, MLC and P&I. Gross platform inflows were $4.8 billion during the quarter, including $3.0 billion in the advised channel, highlighting the attractiveness and competitiveness of our contemporary, go-forward offerings, while our retail asset management offerings continue to attract new inflows.”

Last week, Insignia confirmed it had successfully completed the separation of the pension and investments (P&I) business from ANZ following a multi-year program of work.

“The separation from ANZ, which was achieved on schedule and to plan, with minimal disruption to clients, marks another important milestone in the integration of our acquired businesses and realisation of synergies, and demonstrates our capability to deliver on major transformation initiatives,” Mr Mota said.

The firm is currently executing the sale of the Australian Executor Trustees business (AET), which is expected to be completed by the end of calendar year 2022.