I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a more bizarre backtrack in my years as a journalist.
This week, one of the stories that garnered the most attention in the advisory sector was the revelation by Aegon, buried deep within their second quarter results announcement yesterday (8 August), that its long-time loss-making advisory business Origen Financial Services will become a “tied agent network”.
This was a departure from the firm’s previous stance that it would be a whole of market firm. It did launch a workplace pensions business in late 2012 that provides only access to the Aegon Retirement Choices platform, but this was to sit “alongside its whole of market propositions”.
More surprising than the decision - which given that the firm continues to languish in the red, making a £2.9m loss for 2012, was perhaps not a shock - is the firm’s hasty attempt to “clarify” the situation today.
Apparently, it’s all a big misunderstanding. When Aegon said “tied agent network” it didn’t mean a ‘tied agent’, or even ‘network’.
A note to advisers today, seen by FTAdviser, says: “We recently added the market leading ARC to our panel of preferred platforms [for individual client business]. Indeed ARC is our preferred platform for new investment business giving customers access to a wide range of funds through a variety of wrappers.
“To support our whole of market propositions we compile a number of panels to ensure the best products/services are offered to our clients. These panels will include some Aegon products where they are market leading, including the ARC platform mentioned above.”
FTAdviser spoke to Aegon in an attempt to clarify the situation, asking whether there was some misunderstanding over whether “tied” actually meant “restricted”. It’s response? “That’s what we are trying to figure out”.
FTAdviser also asked whether there is any dissonance between it and Origen. Apparently not: “We’re both on the same page”.
I’m not sure what to make of it all. At the very least it seems Aegon have made a hash of the PR, at worst it could reflect that the upper echelons of the business don’t have a clue what the model for the business is any more.
Lies, damn lies and adviser numbers data
Origen was also in the news on FTAdviser this week when sister title Financial Adviser reported that it has picked up a number of advisers from Yorkshire and Clydesdale building societies.
In itself this is not a big story, but it does provide a useful segue into yet more dispute over adviser numbers. Up until now the consensus has been that adviser attrition is rampant, not least because of bank advisers leaving the market.
Not so, says the Personal Finance Society chief executive Keith Richards. In a video with FTAdviser, Mr Richards continued his attempts to wrestle back the debate over the future of advice from the naysayers by suggesting the number of certificates issued by PFS parent body the Chartered Insurance Institute points to growth in adviser numbers.
He says the CII has issued 2,000 statements of professional standing since the Retail Distribution Review came into force and that there may be 34,000 or more advisers in the industry now. As at December 2012, Financial Conduct Authority data showed there were 31,132 advisers with an SPS.
Not conclusive - none of these stats are - but at least it gives some reason to be cheerful in the face of the pervasive negativity across the sector.
Other numbers this week from Matrix Solutions showed that 11 out of the 15 largest networks have seen an exodus of registered individuals since December 2012, with overall numbers dropping by 669 RIs.
Many advisers disputed the numbers, as did Sesame. Matrix said they’d shed the most RIs in the past six months, from 1,841 in December last year to 1,643 at the end of June, but the firm said the number of RIs had increased last year and that it now has more than 2,300 RIs.
Some advisers have suggested the Matrix data did not take account of joiners and only counted those leaving. Either way it is yet more proof that as important as statistics are they are open to a wide degree of interpretation.
Don’t long-stop me now
FTAdviser sister title Financial Adviser followed up the launch of the Tenet long-stop petition, the latest attempt to force a change to the rules to limit the liability for advisers, reporting that it had amassed close to 600 signatures by Tuesday.
Well, it continues to move forward. As at the time of writing on Friday afternoon, there are 1,846 and counting. You can sign it, if you like, here.
Interestingly, despite the cacophonous calls for a long-stop from all quarters of the sector in recent years, we’re now hearing some discord as to who this benefits and whether it really matters to most advisers.
One adviser commenting on the article said that it is only an issue for networks (such as Tenet) - and that it would not matter to directly authorised advisers that have limited liability afforded by their company structure.
I’d be interested to know if any more advisers agree with this view, so get in touch.
Additional reporting by Donia O’Loughlin
