After three months in the job, ipac managing director Tim Steele concedes that his timing could have been better.
Installed in the role after an AMP management shake-up across its advice business late last year and officially taking the reins in mid-February, Steele has faced the twin challenges of complying with the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) reforms and the integration of the Tynan MacKenzie boutique into ipac.
The latter decision was made as part of an ongoing review following AMP’s acquisition of AXA, which owned both ipac and Tynan MacKenzie, in 2011.
“It’s been a very interesting three months as we bring together ipac and Tynan MacKenzie and at the same time set the business up to comply with the new world under FoFA,” Steele told Professional Planner.
“Behaviourally, ipac and Tynan MacKenzie are very aligned to running a fee-for-service-type model but there are changes to our model that we need to consider.”
Specifically, ipac has sought to broaden its approved product lists (APLs) to ensure it meets the best-interests duty under the FoFA reforms.
Ensuring a consistent client value proposition across the business has occupied much of Steele’s time and he sees this as a key differentiator post-July 1.
“Given that ipac is business-to-consumer and not business-to-business, our constant focus is on what we need to deliver to clients to meet their objectives,” he said.
“Both ipac and Tynan MacKenzie have not exclusively but predominantly been working in the pre-retirement and at-retirement market… but we have a desire to expand the segments that we support.”
Steele says the merger is not yet complete but the Australian Financial Services licences and advice policies of ipac and Tynan MacKenzie will have been harmonised by June 30. The brands will co-exist until March 31, 2014, at which point the Tynan MacKenzie logo will disappear.
Ipac currently has 225 advisers including 113 employed advisers with the remainder part of the group’s equity partner model.
