As investment advisors shift their practices to being one-stop wealth-management shops, they are demanding that more comprehensive support services be provided in-house, suggests the results of this year’s Brokerage Report Card.
Advisors who raved about their firm’s “support for wills and estate planning,” “support for tax planning” and “support for insurance planning” were almost always those who had direct and quick access to the in-house experts they needed.
For example, in terms of an average of performance ratings in the three categories, Toronto-based Richardson GMP Ltd. scored a solid 9.4. Although this average rating dropped slightly — from 9.6 in 2009 for predecessor firm Richardson Partners Financial Ltd. — Richardson GMP was still the top-rated firm in these categories.
(Advisors with Richardson GMP’s other predecessor firm, GMP Private Client LP, did not have any in-house support services prior to the merger, as the firm had a third-party arrangement. Those advisors now have more direct access to the support they need.)
Says a Richardson GMP advisor in Ontario who was originally with GMP: “Compared to what we had, it’s excellent. Richardson Partners had insurance and wealth-management tools that helped us uncover what clients need.”
The following firms saw major improvements in the average performance rating of their three core support services: Toronto-based RBC Dominion Securities Inc., to 8.9 from 8.4; Vancouver-based Odlum Brown Ltd. , to 8.5 from 8.0; Toronto-based CIBC Wood Gundy, to 7.9 from 7.7; and Vancouver-based Canaccord Financial Ltd. , to 7.9 from 7.2.
Accessibility to support service specialists is what made the difference at DS, says an advisor in Alberta: “The firm has a wills and estates specialist that comes in every week. The frequency of the visits makes the resources more accessible.”
Investing heavily into DS’s support services platform is what led to the increased accessibility, says CEO and national director David Agnew: “Within the firm, I think we have 90 people who are working with advi-sors and their clients.”
For the second year in a row, Wood Gundy advisors cite the benefit of having Jamie Golombek, managing director of tax and estate planning with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s private wealth-management division, on board.
“We actually spent more time and effort to get the right people in [support] groups,” says Monique Gravel, managing director and head of Wood Gundy. “Jamie Golombek is extremely well respected on the Street and was a huge acquisition.”
Improved ratings at Canaccord indicate that John Rothwell, the firm’s executive vice president and managing director, has kept his promise to “augment” the support services division — a goal he outlined in last year’s Report Card.
“We have worked hard to ensure we have the right leadership in the right places in these categories,” says Rothwell, noting the firm has also provided more in-house training for advisors to learn how to use its support services tools.
Meanwhile, advisors with Toronto-based Macquarie Private Wealth Inc. have not seen increased in-house support services since Australia-based Macquarie Group purchased the wealth-management arm of Toronto-based Blackmont Capital Inc. last year. But some are still hopeful. “I think some [support in wills and estate planning is] lacking,” says a Macquarie advisor in British Columbia. “I’m hoping it will change with the acquisition.”
The firm is listening, as it has already invested in making changes. Macquarie has put together a steering committee comprising a senior wills and estates consultant, a senior tax planner and six top-performing advisors to evaluate and make recommendations for improving the tools in this area, says Dave Cieslowski, senior vice president of Macquarie’s products and services group.
Similarly, advisors with Montreal-based National Bank Financial Ltd. cite a lack support in the areas of insurance and wills and estate planning as a source of dissatisfaction. Specifically, advi-sors say they were upset with the firm’s decision to decrease its support for insurance planning. As an NBF advisor in Alberta points out: “The firm doesn’t invest enough time to develop properly our knowledge of insurance products.”
However, the dissatisfaction over decreasing the in-house support service may be unfounded, says Gordon Gibson, senior vice president and managing director of NBF, who says that advi-sors weren’t making enough use of the department: “The reality is that most investment advisors would prefer to have a referral structure, in which they bring somebody in to do the insurance business rather than doing it themselves. They want to get paid for the referrals from those relationships.”