Licensee Infocus has unveiled a new “flexible partnership” system, creating three distinct options that it believes will cater to all advice models.
The ‘member’, ‘partner’ and ‘enterprise’ models are differentiated by whether they are offering just simple licensing arrangements, or including service support and equity investment from the licensee.
This is the latest in a series of licensees differentiating themselves from competitors by changing or bolstering their offering to advisers.
Infocus founder and managing director Darren Steinhardt tells Professional Planner the firms the licensee work with automatically fall into one of the three models with the majority of firms being part of the ‘member’ model.
The ‘member’ model gives members full control over whether to be Infocus-licensed or self-licensed with the latter still receiving “on demand” support.
“There are about 100 that are ‘member’ firms, that are people who are working within our operating framework, our license,” Steinhardt says.
“There’s about another 15 that are again operating within our advice community, our advice framework, but running with their own license.”
The ‘partner’ model involves advisers using the licensee’s services covering technology, operational support and investment solutions as well as Infocus being a capital partner offering equity stakes.
“There are three firms that are partner firms that we have an equity stake in those firms, and we want to do more of that,” Steinhardt says.
The “enterprise” model focuses on scalable solutions for larger businesses, especially around leveraging Infocus’ technology and infrastructure offering.
Steinhardt says the plan of the new program “is all about growth” and comes after Infocus acquired Madison last year.
“Our growth and our success is directly linked to the success of the advisers that are within our community,” he says.
Steinhardt says Infocus is not necessarily trying to attract more advisers as part of the new model but welcomes any that find it attractive.
“If there are advisers that are looking for a different style of growth, then we might be the right people,” he says.
He adds the licensee is not targeting new firms over the existing firms the company already works with.
“If that means it’s the growth of an existing member firm, great, if it’s a new firm joining the community, great, if it’s a new startup wanting to come on board, fantastic,” Steinhardt says.
“If it’s someone that wants us to help superpower the growth of their firm by becoming their capital partner, that’s great.”
The Infocus announcement comes as licensees further aim to differentiate themselves in a tighter market space, which will be a key topic at the Professional Planner Licensee Summit on 23-24 June in the NSW Blue Mountains.
Earlier this month, licensee Oreana announced a partnership with Encore Advisory Group to boost its equity stake capabilities.
Equity stakes had become a popular option for licensees to create further value outside of fees, which had been pursued by licensees like Count and Centrepoint.
In a similar vein, when Entireti acquired AMP’s advice licensees in August 2024, the licensee also announced a strategic partnership with Paul Barrett’s AZ NGA to strengthen the advice businesses.
However, the industry has also seen the opposite model emerge – where advisers own the majority of equity in their licensee – when Insignia Financial divested its self-employed adviser networks to create Rhombus Advisory.
