Prudential Financial Planning (PFP) has launched a self-employed, restricted advice operation called The Advice Partnership from Prudential.
The 25 founding partners, who have been recruited from PFP’s current 360 employed adviser team, are currently in the process of being onboarded.
Prudential said it has plans to grow the enterprise in the coming years.
Rebadging
Phil Billingham, director of Perceptive Planning, said to International Adviser: “I actually think this is déjà vu all over again.
“There have been several relaunches of the Prudential sales force in my lifetime.”
That being said, Billingham added that he “welcomes all new sources of advice for consumers”.
Details
All advisers who join the partnership will be able to build their own business and, after a minimum period of five years, will have the option to “capture enterprise value from their efforts”.
Initially, the proposition will mirror that of PFP; offering Prudential’s wrappers, its range of investment solutions and a near whole-of-market range of annuity and protection products, but this may develop in the future.
Tom Hegarty, director of the advice partnership at Prudential, said it “will play an important role in the growth of the financial advice sector by supporting and developing our advisers”.
“It gives them the tools to be able to provide a wide range of clients, who potentially would not otherwise have accessed professional financial advice, with a profitable and cost-effective service that meets their needs.”
Competition
So, what does this mean for independently-owned businesses? Are they likely to face greater competition?
Billingham added: “Anything that can increase the capacity of advisers is a good thing, but reading the press release, it would seem to me that initially this is a rebadging of advisers from one part of the firm to another, rather than increasing numbers as such.
“I understand it is a restricted offering, so it will be a limited advice to consumers. I think they are in a different world from us, and it does not affect us one way or the other.”
Client focus
“As a large firm ourselves, with 190 advisers, I don’t see this as a problem,” Tim Sargisson, chief executive of Sandringham Financial Partners, told IA.
“We need advice businesses with scale and robust technology to deliver what is expected of us by the regulator and demanded by clients.
“The key issue is to be truly customer-centric. The behemoth that puts the customer third behind the adviser and shareholders would be taking the profession back to the 80s and 90s, where delivering something that the customer actually wanted was an afterthought.”
Industry positive
Chris Page, director of Lewis Brownlee Financial Services, told IA: “More quality financial planning in the industry can only be a good thing for consumers.
“Prudential are a widely recognised brand and so this will hopefully enhance the advice industry’s reputation at large – so it’s a positive as far as we are concerned.
“Ultimately, the more people who receive sound financial planning, the better, so anything that actively encourages reputable advice is a good thing.”
