Financial planning collective Best Advice Project could develop tailored product pools and award mandates within the pools under a new institutional-style model being explored by the group.
Chief executive Tony Fenning says the initiative is one of a number being considered as the group seeks to reposition its member firms as a “more competitive force”.
“We will probably create some unique structures for our clients, as distinct from any suggestion that we would run them ourselves,” he says.
“We would effectively outsource those different roles to what we see as best of breed providers and they might potentially be different people for the alpha and the beta components of the portfolio and they will probably be different people for different asset classes as well.”
The group, which has $10 billion in funds under advice and counts 12 planning firms as members, is on the verge of rebranding as Shadforth Financial Group (SFG).
It plans to transition all firms across to a new dealership, Shadforth Dealer Services, to be headed up by Nick Bedding, Shadforth chief executive.
“We’ve followed the model the accounting and law firms adopted in the 80s and 90s, the concept being that you have a central holding company which acts like the federated owner of the national group and the supplier of all back-office services,” Fenning says
