AMP owned dealer group Hillross is aiming to achieve double-digit revenue growth and double-digit practice growth over the next 12 months.
“We want to help our firms drive double-digit percentage revenue growth, and we’d see those sort of outcomes realised by our business as well,” Hillross managing director Hugh Humphrey said yesterday.
“We think we can achieve, it’s relatively aggressive but, double-digit practice growth, in the low double-digit percentages growth in practices, organic and inorganic.
“How will we do that? Practice start-ups – and our Horizons Academy has an important role to play there; practice onboarding, so practices that are part of other licencees or other dealer groups around the country who choose to come to Hillross; and then some practice acquisitions,” he said.
“We’ll also make some targeted acquisitions in the marketplace where we can see the right sort of value equation and get the return on capital.”
Hillross has about 300 advisers across 112 practices. Humphrey said it caters for the premium end of the market. Financial services benchmarking company Comparator said Hillross had $40 million in funds under management per adviser, the highest of any licencee in Australia.
Humphrey said acquisition and onboarding were the priorities, and Hillross was honing its skills to ensure smooth integration of any practices joining the group.
“Particularly in the current environment, there’s quite a lot of interest in the Hillross proposition given the uncertainty in the marketplace,” he said.
Humphrey said planners wanted more security following the global financial crisis and ahead of the government’s planned Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms.
He said Hillross aimed to get more value from its brand, as well as benefit from the AMP/AXA suite of support services, including vetting and paraplanning, as well as an advice service desk where advisers could bounce solutions off experts.
“How I summarise that is we’re really sweating the assets of AMP group,” he said.
