Melbourne-based financial planning practice Oak Financial Partners intends to add an in-house property management arm to its operations within the next 12 to 18 months, according to principal Cameron Vallve.
This would cater to demand from a number of the firm’s clients that hold investment properties, and is driven by a number of internal staff with experience in the property sector and a desire to move into this service area.
Vallve says it is also considering adding a legal service within the next two to three years.
“We’ve spoken about potentially offering legal services in time, but only as it relates to retail financial planning,” he says, explaining it would focus on succession planning, estate planning, and possibly some conveyancing.
“It seems logical to management that if we continue to grow and provide deeper advice to people over time, instead of having a preferred shortlist of legal providers we work with, we could offer that in house,” Vallve adds.
Realising this business addition is not without challenges, he emphasises it would not be part of the practice’s Australian Financial Services license but a separate entity.
“You’d have to be very transparent with how clients have different service relationships between the two firms, but I don’t think that would be unachievable. That’s why we’re having a pretty good think about how it could work before we dive into it.”
Oak Financial Partners is an AFS licensee of AMP Financial Group, founded by Vallve in 2008. Since starting out as a sole trader, he says the business has now grown to around 25 staff, with eight authorised representatives.
Starting out by buying a small book of business, Vallve explains this gave him additional leads early on, enabling him to service policy holders who might not have had an existing relationship with a financial planner.
“This allows you to get moving, and to have confidence to upsize your staff, if you can have some certainty around trailing revenues that you can potentially grow your business into.
“And then as you get bigger, you can continue to grow on the back of the original database, consider other acquisitions, other specialist staff and hiring opportunities. Otherwise you’d be starting from ground level,” he says.
Multi-disciplinary approach
In addition to financial planning, Oak Financial Partners also has an internal accounting team, with two accountants and an administration assistant.
It also offers clients direct access to mortgage broking specialists, having offered this capability for the last three to four yours.
“I believe it’s an area of the business that’s got huge growth opportunities. Mum and dad clients are very interested in talking about this, and it’s a cornerstone of a lot of people’s financial planning.
“I think if you’re going to try and offer a comprehensive advice offering, you have to cover that, resource it and do so as a specialist rather than just giving general debt advice. It helps to be able to talk about mortgage products and pricing,” Vallve says.
Advice team
While acknowledging the important contribution Oak’s referral partners make to its client base, he says the varied backgrounds of its financial planners is key to generating new business.
“Each has a different background…we have someone from an agricultural background, with a lot of contacts in rural victoria, such as farming networks.
“We also have someone with experience in the health service, so he has great relationships with aged care providers and some doctors surgeries.
“We allow the advisers to explore their own social and business networks, with a view that they’ll gravitate to those they’re most passionate about and experienced in….we give them scope,” Vallve says
Institutional licensee versus self-directed
He acknowledges the intense speculation and debate around the provision of financial advice by large financial institutions, but emphasises the advantages his business and clients draw from being aligned with AMP.
“We’ve got a great relationship with the licensee. It’s obviously a large company, with a very deep skillset and resources that can help a financial planning practice.
“But by the same token, they give us the scope for flexibility to cater to clients’ specific needs…I think it would be very different at a big four bank [licensee],” Vallve says.
“There’s a lot of noise in the industry, and I understand why…sometimes the industry gets dragged down by the lowest common denominator. But it’s up to the people who believe in professionalism to deal with that and improve sentiment over time.”
