Securitor is expanding its role in investment research following a merger of BT's advice businesses late last year.
Dealer group Securitor has brought part of its research process back in house, in a bid to achieve closer alignment with its parent company BT Financial Group (BTFG).
"We've recognised that as a business we need to take ownership of the decision making for our organisation," BTFG head of practice management Matt Englund said at a Securitor convention last week.
Although Securitor continues to work closely with its external research providers, including Standard and Poor's, it is looking to take a greater responsibility in making decisions that affect clients.
"What we are doing is refining the services we deliver to our advisers. We've got very different needs in our high net worth space compared to the space that services our affluent and mass affluent markets," Englund said.
"We have focussed very heavily on working with our outsourced partners, but also internalising some of our processes," he said.
The research team will take a more active role in the asset allocation process and will conduct a review of Securitor's model portfolios on a six-monthly basis.
It has also sent out a request for proposal (RFP) for the provision of direct equities research, which is currently supplied by Aegis.
"We are at the moment part way through an RFP in the marketplace, across 17 equities providers, for an equity research partner to service the needs of all of our advice businesses," Englund said.
Securitor's research team was merged with the team of the BTFG advice businesses, including Magnitude and Westpac Financial Planning, late last year.
To deal with the extra responsibilities, the combined team has been expanded by six research professionals, which brings the total to 13.
The team is headed by BTFG senior manager research Piers Bolger, who joined BTFG in October last year from UBS Asset Management.
Bolger has been driving the changes in the research process in recent months.
"We want to provide greater accountability and alignment within the adviser businesses," Bolger said. "We want to help them grow their value propositions."
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