Esencia launched in 2024 following the merger of Advise Wise, Insight Private Wealth, Sovereign Wealth Partners and Randle Advisory, and the addition now of Generation Wealth and its managed discretionary account licence will allow Esencia to broaden its investment capability.
Generation principals Peter Lee and Joe Jutrisa join Esencia Wealth as shareholders, partners and senior financial advisers.
“The intention for us, at least the medium term, is to continue to operate that [MDA licence], in which most of Peter and Joe’s clients sit, and it provides a potential solution for a cohort of our clients as well,” Esencia Wealth CEO and managing director Matthew Fenning tells Professional Planner.
“But our model is not a licensee model; it’s a one integrated firm model. The intention as an advice firm is to continue to run a single licensee model.”
Fenning says the plan is to keep both licences for the medium term as it is best for the clients and the simplest way to continue to operate without disruption.
“But we’ll spend plenty of time thinking about how we operate that over the long term. But the path of least resistance is it it’s working well. It’s working well for clients. It’s working well for the business. So, we’ll retain that as is for the immediate future.”
A benefit of the merger for Generation Wealth is that Esencia absorbs aspects of the day-to-day operation of the business freeing up time that Lee and Jutrisa can dedicate to clients.
“There are things that we can invest in that smaller businesses can’t. So, there’s a lot more specialisation available to Peter and Joe and others that helps them in the background to service clients in the foreground,” Fenning says.
“There’s a lot of talk about advisor productivity in the market, and that tends to be directed at more clients, and that’s a valid point. But I think what’s not talked about as much is more time and a more personalised opportunity to take more personalised approach with clients.”
In a media release Lee said Generation Wealth Partners started under the belief that there was a better way to serve clients and their families “with genuine relationships, personalised advice and a real focus on the long term”.
“Joining Esencia Wealth means we can keep delivering on that promise, while giving our clients access to the depth of expertise and resources that come with a growing national firm,” Lee said.
Fenning says that his personal experience going from running a small business up until a few years ago to leading Esencia is that it was harder to invest in people and create long term pathways for people to learn, grow and stay with the business.
“Having more scale, I suppose, but effectively more money to spend means that you can invest more in people and create more types of opportunities for people, not just linear ones, where I go from client service to associate advisor to advisor, and so on.
“But we can create a lot of opportunities for people to work on projects and initiatives for things that they’re interested in. We can create similar opportunities that larger businesses can for people to move around.”
Growth strategy and the operating model
Esencia has 26 authorised representatives, including the Generation Wealth partners. When it launched in 2024 it had 11. The business has grown from 1000 to 2800 clients since 2024, with 250 coming from the Generation Wealth merger. With a vision to support 10,000 clients nationally, Esencia continues to look for partners with similar values and focus.
Esencia has the ambition to be a national business and is currently present in Sydney and recently expanded to Brisbane and Shell Harbour in March and May respectively.
The clients that Generation Wealth brings are the sort that the business has supported and advised for a long time.
When it comes to mergers, Esencia looks for firms with the same values and vision, “because one mistake, doesn’t matter how many people you have, can be a big distraction for a long time”.
Fenning agrees that there is no single operating model what will succeed in the future of financial advice but for Esencia the focus will remain the same: being a strategic financial advice business.
“But there’s a place for the larger licensees, and they’ve done a great job of flipping or evolving their model over the course of time,” Fenning says.
“All of those different things are going to work as long as the organisations are capable of executing on it and doing a great job that results in good outcomes for clients.
“There’s a lot, a lot more opportunity in in financial advice than I think there’s ever been, and that’s good news for everyone.”
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