Miles' dealer group staffs up

Platform providers shortlisted

By Julie May
Fri 12 Mar 2010

Following ING Australia's purchase of a 20 per cent stake in Fortnum, the dealer group can now begin hiring.

New dealer group Fortnum Financial Group (Fortnum) has announced that it can now begin hiring advisers for its network, Fortnum executive director and former managing director of Genesys Wealth Advisers (Genesys) Ray Miles has said.

"We're ready to start recruiting and we plan to make announcements about new hires in the coming weeks," Miles told InvestorDaily.

He said Fortnum wanted to have 15 practices on board by the end of the 2010 calendar year and that it would be looking to recruit practices from all over Australia.

Comments from Miles follow yesterday's announcement that ING Australia would provide 20 per cent of the capital needed to fund Fortnum, with ING Australia-owned dealer group RI Advice (formerly RetireInvest) to provide Fortnum with core dealer services.

Miles said Fortnum and wealth management firm Yellow Brick Road chairman and co-founder Mark Bouris were also not far off announcing which organisation or organisations would be the chosen provider of a universal managed account (UMA) investment platform.

He and Bouris said they were specifically seeking a UMA investment platform to provide both individually managed account (IMA) and separately managed account (SMA) solutions for their clients.

"We've got a shortlist of four organisations and expect to make an announcement soon," Miles said.

Last year there was speculation that Miles could be hired by RI Advice following a number of ex-Genesys staffers moving over to RI Advice, including former Genesys chief executive and current RI Advice chief executive Paul Campbell.

Miles was made redundant by Genesys in March 2007 and up until 15 September 2009 had an injunction restraining him from soliciting Genesys member firms.

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