Big deals, people moves and voting were among the key themes across the adviser industry this week.
This is FTAdviser’s round-up of what you need to know about this week:
1) First of many?
The long-predicted platform market consolidation appeared to begin in earnest on Tuesday (3 May), as Standard Life announced a deal to buy Axa’s Portfolio Services, known to most advisers as Elevate.
The French insurer confirmed rumours it is on the way out of the UK life and savings market, with discussions underway over the sale of its remaining assets, namely direct protection business SunLife and non-platform investment and pension divisions.
Standard Life’s head of adviser and wealth manager propositions David Tiller denied consolidation in the platform industry limits choice and promised to invest in Elevate’s technology and governance.
However, ex-Cofunds boss and James Hay chief executive Alastair Conway predicted a return to the “old world” of restricted salesforces following the deal.
Somewhat overshadowed was an even bigger transaction - at least in terms of money - which saw Aegon buying BlackRock’s UK defined contribution platform and administration business, worth £12bn of assets and 350,000 customers.
The deal will create a £30bn platform-based workplace savings business within Aegon while BlackRock’s £65bn UK defined contribution business will focus on investment management.
While these deals were sealed, Sanlam pulled out of a deal to buy a stake in UK advice network Caerus and its investment management business Caerus Portfolio Management.
2) People moving
Nutmeg saw change at the top this week, as founder Nick Hungerford moved to a non-executive role in order to let recently-appointed Martin Stead become chief executive.
“Under Martin’s leadership, Nutmeg 2.0 will transform financial advice and the relationship that Europeans have with their money,” stated Mr Hungerford.
Both AIG and Axa Investment Managers were also at it, the former hiring Mark Anders as partnerships director and moving Vicky Churcher to intermediary director, while the latter appointed Rogge Global Partners’ Michael Ganske as its head of emerging markets fixed income.
Meanwhile, Leeds Building Society is looking for a new head of intermediary distribution, as Louisa Sedgwick announced she will leave in the summer; news that came as the lender also announced a merry-go-round of senior staff.
Finally, a couple of big names are set to leave the industry. Columbia Threadneedle European equities head Leigh Harrison is to retire in the summer, prompting a senior reshuffle at the fund house, while over at Jupiter, head of marketing Richard Wilson has resigned.
3) To the polls
Yesterday (5 May) saw voting across the country, for parliament in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, English councils and police commissioners.
FTAdviser covered both the Scottish election and London mayoral vote from the perspective of housing policy, so it will be interesting to see which pledges become reality in the coming months and years.
Of course, there are a couple more votes which could be far more decisive across the wider financial sphere and the global markets.
While the UK’s GDP growth slowed, with many economists blaming the country’s EU referendum, the argument was made there are far more important things to be worrying about, chief among them probably Republican nominee Donald Trump’s march towards the White House.
4) Buy-to-let bunfight
Rarely out of the news these days, the buy-to-let market kicked up a few more big stories this week in the wake of recent changes.
A share sale by directors of the Mortgage Advice Bureau had one adviser claiming this signified the sector’s rise finally petering out, but brokers hit back at the “scaremongering” and stated demand from clients remains strong.
Elsewhere, The Mortgage Works’ move to increase rental cover rates from 125 per cent to 145 per cent for all buy-to-let applications led many to suggest other lenders may follow suit ahead of reforms which will introduce a 20 per cent limit for tax relief on buy-to-let mortgage interest from next April.
There was an update on the court case between a group of buy-to-let landlords and West Bromwich Building Society over an increase in their tracker mortgage rates on Wednesday (4 May), while just this morning a lender warned of the potential consequences of recommending a pay rate buy-to-let mortgage to landlord clients, in light of expected changes from the Prudential Regulation Authority.
5) Directory enquiries
Unbiased and VouchedFor denied they were going into battle this week, despite both adviser directories bringing out new television advertising campaigns.
Michael Ossei, head of adviser products at Unbiased, claimed their rival was in fact focused on the higher net worth end of the spectrum, but still admitted “VouchedFor has put pressure on us to be out there and talk about our products”.
A spokesman for VouchedFor responded: “We welcome the news that Unbiased are following in VouchedFor’s footsteps by launching a big advertising campaign.”
Watch this television space.
