In the past week alone, a umber of high-profile executives announced they would be leaving for greener pastures.
FPA chief executive Jo-Anne Bloch announced her resignation, setting her sights on the other side of the desk in a financial planning role with Mercer.
Suncorp-owned Tyndall chief executive Brett Himbury is set to wave goodbye to the retail industry by joining the industry super sector.
The surprising nature of these departures is not necessarily the fact the announcements were so close together, but perhaps more so they were made at a time of fickle markets.
In the past 12 months there has been little movement at the request of individuals. While redundancies occurred at various levels, such staff movements were not considered to be beneficial to staff, but merely staff turnover due to cost cutting.
Last week, one dealer group chief expressed his surprise at such executive movement, particularly amid a period of market consolidation.
It was his view that people movement would occur, but he expected it to be at the hands of a major merger such as the proposed union between National Australia Bank (NAB) and the local assets of Axa Asia Pacific (Axa AP).
Also this month, MLC chief investment officer Chris Condon joined the ranks of the departed, announcing he will step down from his role at the end of this month.
Condon’s announcement is one of a handful of changes within the NAB and Axa ranks, sparking suggestions both firms may indeed be close to joining forces.
Colonial First State (CFS) head of platform sales Aubrey Roga has also jumped ship to join rival MLC.
Roga resigned from CFS in early February to take up the role of head of insurance sales across MLC’s wealth and insurance platform division.
While perhaps NAB may indeed be busy shuffling in readiness for a merger with Axa AP, the bid requires the green light from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Earlier this month, the ACCC raised concerns over NAB’s potential takeover of Axa AP.
“The ACCC’s preliminary view is that the proposed acquisitions may raise competition concerns in the national market for the supply of retail investment platform services to institutions, suppliers of investment products, non-aligned dealer groups and financial adviser businesses,” the ACCC said in a statement.
“It appears to the ACCC that NAB’s proposed acquisition of Axa raises a higher level of concern than AMP’s proposed acquisition of Axa.”
Either acquisition may also raise competition issues in the market for the supply of investment products available on retail platforms and the market for the supply of financial planning and advisory services.
The ACCC said the merger of Axa with either party would be unlikely to raise competition issues in either the superannuation and retirement income product or life insurance market.
It seems the waiting game is to continue at least for a little while longer.
