Speaking to media following AMP’s annual general meeting in Sydney last week, the AMP boss said he is “not at all concerned” over with closure of Genesys and the exit of member firms, describing the company’s overall advice network as “very healthy”.
“If you look at our adviser numbers over the last three years we have been one of the stronger adviser franchises in the country, we are also the biggest in the country,” Mr Meller said.
“Genesys advisers are only 200 out of 3,800 advisers we have in our different licensees across Australia.”
Mr Meller also highlighted that the decision to close Genesys was made due to the financial cost of running the dealer group.
“The challenge with Genesys is that the critical mass and [the cost of running it] just wasn’t economic for the size of the licensee," he said.
“We looked at it – we had very professionally constructed discussions with the individual businesses within the Genesys licensee. Many of them have chosen to stay with AMP some of them have moved elsewhere.”
Mr Meller also reiterated the decision to consolidate the management of its ipac and Charter financial planning businesses led to Tim Steele and Tim Stone’s decision to leave the company’s advice network.
“Clearly if you go from five to two there are going to be people who no longer have [managing director] positions and Kevin and Tim are people who found themselves in that situation,” Mr Meller said.
