A “philosophical partnership” between the Brisbane-based Fitzpatricks Financial Group and the Gosford-based Moneywise Group Australasia signals the emergence of a new, national non-aligned group positioning itself as a true alternative to institutionally owned advice networks.
No money has changed hands between the parties, but a meeting of the minds has seen the two groups come together, with the common thread being the former managing director of Hillross and Centric Wealth, John McMurdo.
It was a big week for McMurdo. On Thursday, he publicly announced he’d joined Fitzpatricks Financial Group as managing director. On Friday it was revealed he had joined Moneywise as chairman. Fitzpatricks also announced that the former chief executive officer of Colonial First State, Chris Cuffe, had joined its board as a non-executive director.
The managing director of Moneywise, Brett Gilday, says the formation of the alliance presents “a very strong alternative to the bank-owned planning operations”.
“We think that clients deserve an independent alternative and we’re all very strongly culturally aligned on that basis,” Gilday says.
“If you wanted to Google and look at where Fitzpatricks’ offices are and where Moneywise offices are, I think that’s a national group aligned there already.”
Moral compass
Gilday says it is “very attractive to be involved with a group that Chris Cuffe and John McMurdo find to be of interest as well, with their very strong track record”.
“I value very strongly their moral compass as well,” he says.
Moneywise was founded in 1999 by Gilday and David Loadsman. Loadsman passed away unexpectedly last year.
“It gave us an opportunity to stick our heads up and see what’s out there,” Gilday says.
“We asked around, and the name Fitzpatricks kept cropping up. In particular, they kept mentioning the Atrium investment-management team, which Fitzpatricks use.
“Subsequently we were introduced to John [McMurdo], and we’ve been very fortunate to get a lot of his time over the last six months, and he’s helped us navigate through that quite emotionally distracting period.
“He’s given us a lot of his insights, which he’s gleaned through all his years in the industry, into best practice and subsequent to that, Fitzpatricks were generous enough to allow him to sit on our board as well.
“It was happy accident, to a degree, which unfortunately came about because our MD passed away.”
Same philosophy
Gilday (right) says it became “very clear that we were philosophically aligned”.
“It’s a philosophical partnership based on our desire to be professional and have a strong investment capacity,” he says.
“They also do not do some of the things that we do.
“On a more mundane level, things like home lending have never been a big part of the Fitzpatricks focus, so there were some gaps there where they could see synergies, and we agreed we were all on a similar plane as far as the advice process.
“So we’ve decided, for want of a better name, to form a co-op, and we imagine that the combined power gives us a national presence, and that should flow on to the clients with being able to negotiate better outcomes as far as product and all of those tings that come with it.”
We didn’t have the luxury of an investment team of the capacity that Fitzpatricks do, and that was something that’s extremely attractive to us. We’ve always been more about the clients, and they’ve been able to benefit from having that fantastic team there, so we were very attracted to that.
“And they recognise there are a couple of things we do here that they don’t.”
Gilday says Moneywise has “always had a vision of a holistic business, so within our four walls we have a full-blown accounting practice, an insurance arm, a home-lending arm as well – because we’ve always been of the opinion that you need to be able to advise on all of those areas to give a complete picture for a client”.
“The planning side of the business is the larger part of the operation,” he says.
“We’ve got our own licence – Moneywise Securities – and that started in 2007-08, and since such time we’ve joined with some like-minded practices in Adelaide, which is 2020 Financial Planning, and we also have an office in Harris Park [PT Partners Accountancy], which is an accounting office with a planner inside who uses our licence.”
