Stephen Gazard’s successor will take charge of a very different Sesame Bankhall from the one he took the reins of just four years ago.
When Mr Gazard took on the managing director job at Sesame Bankhall, he was taking charge of a network that had scooped the top spot of Financial Adviser’s Top 100 Financial Adviser list for many years.
Back in 2012, Sesame Bankhall was the top of Financial Adviser’s Top 100 Financial Adviser list with a turnover of £470m.
Yet in 2013 the group was fined £6m for giving unsuitable advice, and come 2015, the once mighty network had slid down the Financial Adviser Top 100 Financial Adviser list to twentieth place.
As soon as Mr Gazard joined he was greeted by several “annus horribilis” as Sesame moved to a restricted advice model upsetting advisers who clung to their independence and had to undertake past business reviews, which were primarily an investigation into pension switching advice.
The network was fined £1.6m in 2014 for setting up what the FCA called a ‘pay-to-play scheme’ that “undermined the ban on commission payments brought in by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR)”.
In March 2015, Sesame Bankhall Group confirmed it would no longer be offering an appointed representative network option for wealth firms, with wealth firms becoming directly authorised with the support of Bankhall.
While many in the industry have questioned relations between Aviva and Sesame Bankhall, the two appeared to be warming to each other.Following this, FTAdviser reported Intrinsic, part of Old Mutual Wealth, had been selected as the preferred network partner by Sesame Bankhall Group.
In August 2015, Sesame Bankhall Group then lost almost 60 per cent of its network’s member firms following a decision to kill-off its investment advice business.
It was therefore hardly surprising when in October 2016, Sesame Bankhall Group reported a loss for the financial year ended 31 December 2015 of £11.6m.
However the loss was made shocking as it came despite Sesame's new owner Aviva providing £25m of “support” in 2015 to the intermediary group (SBG) so that it could pay “any liability”.
Indeed another major change at Sesame Bankhall in the last four years has been a change in ownership.
When Mr Gazard took the reins of Sesame Bankhall four years ago it was owned by Friends Life.
However Friends Life was then taken over by Aviva.
At the start of 2015 and ahead of the Friends Life acquisition, Aviva stated in a note to shareholders that it would not provide “open-ended” financial support to the lost-making advice network, and without a return to profit it would cease to trade.
Yet Aviva still stepped in to offer financial support although the provider did force an overhaul at the advice group following the takeover.
While many in the industry have questioned relations between Aviva and Sesame Bankhall, the two appeared to be warming to each other and just a year ago Andy Briggs, chief executive of Sesame's owner Aviva UK and Ireland Life, backed a revamped Sesame.
So, what does the future hold for Mr Gazard’s replacements?
What is clear is the challenges and tasks facing hem are very different from the ones Mr Gazard encountered while at the helm of Sesame Bankhall Group.
It was announced today (28 February) that he will be replaced as managing director of Sesame and PMS by Mark Graves, who is currently the network’s sales director.
Meanwhile Julie Sadler, currently compliance and risk director, will become managing director of Bankhall.
In an exclusive interview with FTAdviser, Sesame Bankhall’s executive chairman John Cowan applauded the hard work of Mr Gazard over the last four years.
He said: “We have been restructuring the business and we have been in long discussions with the FCA about that.
“It was a real pig’s ear of a structure. Now we have got three forward-looking businesses.
“This is part of that simplification process. It is now a very simple structure.”
Mr Cowan said this would allow them to focus on their respective parts of the business and he added it was part of the wider changes Sesame Bankhall Group has seen recently.
“We have been restructuring the business and we have been in long discussions with the FCA about that."
So, for Mr Gazard's successor the hard work will have to continue.
emma.hughes@ft.com
