Financial services firm RI Advice Group expects to recruit another 30 advisers to its network by the end of the year.
RI Advice Group national manager of practice development Peter Ornsby said the group had grown from about 200 advisers at the beginning of 2010 to 250 advisers across 121 member firms as of November.
“With about 30 applications currently being processed, we expect to have around 270 to 280 advisers under RI Advice Group by the end of the year and approximately 300 by early next year,” Ornsby said.
“We’re also looking to make appointments at the dealer group level in the near future because the growth of the business is driving a natural restructure to accommodate the increase in adviser numbers.”
RI Advice Group said it would be making announcements about senior appointments in due course and it also planned to introduce dealer group staff in Perth so it could provide on-the-ground support for advisers based in Western Australia.
“We have advisers based in all capital cities. We have good national coverage and also have quite a strong presence in a lot of regional areas as well,” Ornsby said.
“We want to grow adviser numbers nationally, but there will be some concentration on New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.”
He said new advisers to the group had come from both institutional and boutique licensees as well as self-licensed firms.
“The last three firms we put on joined from Charter Financial Planning, Genesys Wealth Advisers and Professional Investment Services,” he said.
“We’ve had self-licensed firms join the group as well, but growth within our existing member firms has definitely been a key contributor to the increase in adviser numbers.
“Our practices have been quite aggressive in their growth strategies and we’ve tried to be very active in helping them to make acquisitions, get finance and work with lenders.”
