Industry sees partial recovery with new adviser gains

According to Wealth Data statistics for the week to 12 September, there were gains of 14 advisers during the period.

This nearly offsets the 15 losses from the previous week, bringing the net change for the 2024 calendar year to a loss of 111. The losses were due to a lower number of new entrants and advisers transitioning between licensees.

Some 35 licensee owners had net gains of 43 advisers while 20 had net losses of 31 advisers. Three new licensee commenced and two ceased, each losing one adviser.

The biggest beneficiary of the movement was Jordan Gitani (Smartmove Advice) which gained six advisers, all of whom switched across from Next Generation Advice (NGAA). As a result, NGAA was down by eight advisers to see the biggest loss in the week.

Three licensees were up by two, including WT Financial Group, and 31 licensees were up by one including AMP Group and Bell Financial.

Regarding losses, Count lost four advisers from Merit Wealth, none of whom have been appointed elsewhere yet. Count CEO Hugh Humphrey has previously discussed the impact of Merit Wealth adviser churn on the business, noting that approximately 24 Merit advisers have left.

On a shareholder webinar in early September, Humphrey said: “When we announced the acquisition, I said 550 financial advisers would be the combined ARs at completion and that’s because the limited ARs on our books, largely within Merit Wealth, are a different type of authorisation who may only give advice once or twice a year or do a piece of work for a client around a self-managed superannuation fund.

“That’s very different to an adviser who has 150–200 ongoing financial advice clients and very different in their revenue.”

O&Z Pty (Havana Financial Services) was down by two advisers in the week to 12 September, with both moving to Finchley & Kent.

A tail of 17 licensee owners were down by a net one each including Unisuper, Infocus and Macquarie Group.

There were also 17 new entrants during the week, which was the highest proportion since the first week of August.