‘Flexibility and control’: Sherlock Wealth goes self-licensed

Following the official takeover of Andrew Sherlock last week as the new chief executive of Sherlock Wealth, the firm announced it has moved to become self-licensed.

Speaking with ifa, the new CEO said the decision to become self-licensed stemmed from a desire to have greater flexibility and control to take a more personalised approach to how the business operates.

“I think for us, it was really around us being able to match our business model and the types of services that we wanted to offer our particular clients in a way that was much more aligned to our client base,” Sherlock said.

“Really the end game is, we want to deliver the most valuable services that we can to our clients, and we believe having our own AFSL will enable us to do that.”

Sherlock also suggested that moving to a self-licensed model will also encourage the firm to better ensure they are following compliance requirements.

“To be honest, we’ve always been a very compliant business, but I think to a certain level, when you actually have your own licence and you’re on the hook more directly for the advice that you give, it probably means that you potentially take it even to the next level in terms of running a compliant business as well,” he said.

While Sherlock noted that the firm had been happily operating as an authorised representative (AR) of Matrix Planning for more than 20 years, he also said that running under a big licensee puts some restrictions on the business.

“At the end of the day, they’ve got to manage a lot of different businesses, dealing with different types of clientele, and different client bases in different parts of the country, and manage the risk around that,” he said.

“Whereas, you know, I believe that we can manage the risk of the three advisers that, at the moment, form our practice in a much more easy and simple fashion. So, I think that’s point one.

“And then I think point two is we now have the ability to in-house what we want, outsource what we want and where we think we need to outsource, and get access to some certain smarts that maybe we don’t think we have internally. We get to choose whom we use for that based on whom we think is the best for our business and the best for our clients.”

Sherlock said that although the firm has only just become self-licensed and therefore he can’t speak on his experience operating under the model, he does believe other firms should be at least considering going down a similar path and exploring their options.

“I think practices owe it to themselves to consider the way that they’re structured and whether they’re structured in the best way for their business model, in the best way for their clients,” he said.

“From that point of view, I do think it’s worth other organisations looking at this as an option for them. Some will go down the path and decide, no, it’s not. And some will go down the path and decide yes, it is.”

Regarding the future of Sherlock Wealth, he said the firm is very much in a growth phase at the moment and is potentially looking to expand over the coming year.

“I think there’s definitely some interesting stuff going on here at the moment. One of the things that’s top of my mind at the moment is, where do we get to in terms of the size of the business? Do we want to bring in other advisers? Do we want to stay relatively boutique?” Sherlock said.

“And I think there is some opportunities for us at the moment to bring in some like-minded advisers, maybe some sole practitioners who have decided that it’s all a bit too much for them to be operating on their own and they could potentially, if they’re the right cultural fit for us and for our client base, join into a business like ours, leverage off all the processes and things that we’ve put in place over a long period of time to make sure that we’re running our business efficiently. That’s probably the next things that we’ll be looking at.

“As a relatively new incoming CEO, it gives me a lot more ability and impetus to start thinking about the firm from a strategic point of view. What are the directions we want to take the firm in? How can we run a really efficient and valuable business and offer a lot of value to our clients as well?”