A co-founder of investment platform Oasis Asset Management has rejected claims white-label platforms do not offer dealer groups or distributors of white labels ownership options when it comes to the client and funds under management (FUM).
Former Oasis head of market development Bruce Tustin said comments made by industry participants, including Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) chief executive Peter Johnston, regarding white label arrangements were wrong.
“I co-founded Oasis, whose sole purpose was to partner with large dealers to develop and distribute super and investment wraps using the Oasis platform,” Tustin said.
“So I have an intimate knowledge of the relationship between the dealer, their clients and Oasis.”
He said within Oasis, the need to ensure the company’s dealer group partners had similar control over their clients and FUM as those who chose to develop a white label was something Oasis was “very conscious” about.
Last month, Johnston used Oasis’s 2005 sale to ING Australia (now ANZ) as an example he believed AIOFP members would use in the event of a platform sale.
“The major issue of ANZ’s Oasis purchase for AIOFP’s advisers relates to client ownership and equity, especially as a number of high-profile national dealer groups, who built the business with their white-label Oasis products, received nothing from the sale to acknowledge both their contribution and efforts,” Johnston said.
“All these dealer groups and their respective advisers received from the transaction was a new product owner of what they thought were their clients. They have now had enough of building someone else’s business only to see it sold off and then having their clients owned by another institution.”
AIOFP member and industry feedback, in Johnston’s opinion, suggested the Oasis buyout was the “last straw” for advisers.
In response to suggestions the Oasis sale left dealers and advisers out of any value from the sale, Tustin said such a suggestion was incorrect.
“There were numerous advisers who took up an opportunity to invest in Oasis at its commencement and did very well out of their investment,” he said.
“Regarding the broader group of dealers who used the Oasis platform, sometime before Oasis was sold to ING they were all approached to participate in a proposed IPO (initial public offering) of Oasis in 2005.
“None of the larger groups chose to participate. Oasis needed the support of the larger groups to ensure the IPO was of sufficient size to proceed, so Oasis decided to go down a trade sale route on its own.”
He said it was always his objective to join Oasis with its dealer clients to create a “larger and more valuable business, unfortunately this did not eventuate”.
