He had, quite rightly, been appointed by the private equity company to lead the platform following the departure of its founder, Bill Vasilieff.
And he had indeed, also quite rightly, changed the status quo. His entrance into the company sparked a dozen executive departures following Vasilieff, including chair David Royds, as well as the CFO, COO, CTO and commercial director.
The departures raised advisers’ eyebrows. So much so, some quizzed the new CEO during a call hosted by the Lang Cat in November on what these mass exits meant for the business and its culture.
He told them “things needed to change”, that his plan was to move the business to £20bn+ from £12.5bn, and “some people decided that wasn't right for them”.
He signalled a new era for the company, one that some advisers have since feared would bear the perceived weight of heavy private equity involvement.
But Mill insists he is anything but a private equity person. “Some IFAs have said that to me,” he told FTAdviser. “But I’m not an ‘AnaCap person’. I’m not a PE person at all. I’m an industry person and a platform person.”
Mill approached AnaCap with his thesis in 2018 on the opportunities in the platform industry where private equity could make good investments.
“It’s the exact reversal of what normally happens. I went to the PE firms saying I had an idea, help me fund it,” he explains.
Mill worked with AnaCap for two years prior to its acquisitions of Novia and Wealthtime, another platform he headed up for six months.
Wealthtime is a separate platform to Novia and was acquired by AnaCap in December 2020. Total assets under administration across both platforms sat at around £11.8bn at the end of March, with £9.3bn sitting on Novia and £2.5bn sitting on Wealthtime.
Before his four years working with AnaCap, Mill was chief executive of Alliance Trust Savings – the platform that was bought by Embark in 2019 – for five years.
He was also a sales director at Prudential, having spent the majority of his earlier career at Yorkshire-headquartered bank Bradford & Bingley, where he headed up the adviser service force looking after 650 IFAs.
“I understand what it’s like. I understand the pain points. And the other area I’ve worked in is product provider [Prudential] selling to IFAs.”
Career timeline
- Currently CEO of Novia, Copia, and Wealthtime – became CEO of Wealthtime in December 2020, and of Novia in July 2021
- Mill Consulting MD from November 2018 to November 2020
- Alliance Trust Savings CEO June 2012 to December 2017, and sales and distribution director from July 2010 to June 2012
- Prudential sales director from July 2005 to July 2010
- Bradford & Bingley MD from December 1991 – July 2005
Asked why he approached AnaCap over other private equity companies, Mill says there were three main reasons. One was that the company only invests in financial services businesses.
“That is hugely helpful. They understand regulation. They understand the standard processes. They understand the market,” says Mill.
Number two was its technology focus when acquiring companies. And three was, he said, the business's focus on “growth stories” versus cost reduction.
“They were a great fit for the thesis. I did a lot of research into the appropriate PE firm. They all had different strategies.”
But like all private equity companies, AnaCap will inevitably exit the business. "As an executive team, we are building the business for the long term to support our advisers with both technology and service," says Mill.
"AnaCap is supporting that journey through investment and is committed to continuing to do that in the medium term. The business is profitable, and following any AnaCap sale we will be able to fund future investment whatever the ownership structure."
‘People are attracted to us more now’
Novia is currently focused on growth, which means attracting assets, refining its technology and drawing in new talent.
Rival platform Nucleus accused Novia earlier this year of “aggressively” recruiting its staff, amidst the departure of four of Nucleus’ employees to Novia, pointing to a competitive climate for hiring in the platform space.
What we don’t want to do is just take people from other platforms.Patrick Mill, Novia“Clearly we need to have better people. We’ve been delighted that we’ve been able to attract a lot of people from other platforms to our business. Some really high-calibre people.”
As well as Nucleus, other executive new hires have come from Parmenion, Wealth Club and Brightside Insurance.
Mill says these new hires have been attracted to Novia because of its strategy and its culture.
“People are attracted to us more now [versus a year ago]. It is a balance. The four businesses we have are all startups [platforms Novia, Wealthtime, Amber, and DFM Copia], they have a good startup mentality, and we’re trying to maintain that.
“But we are growing and we’re a bigger business. So it is a balance between having that startup mentality and fintech focus, but also having that knowledge and experience of platforms because we are a more mature business.
Novia has revealed plans to rebrand the entire business to Wealthtime later this year in a bid to seem less abstract and more like a fintech.
Novia’s CEO is also conscious of attracting people into the platform industry, which is why the company is in the process of restructuring its graduate programme.
“The industry needs to attract more people into it. What we don’t want to do is just take people from other platforms. What that won’t give us a diversity of opinions.”
Over the past 12 months, Mill says the company has “worked really hard” to improve the diversity of hires within the business.
“We’ve a journey to go, but that’s one of the big attractions – diversity of culture.”
‘There’s always price pressure’
When it comes to platform pricing, Novia is the priciest in terms of the percentage fee it charges of client assets up to £500,000.
Its 0.45 per cent charge puts it 10 percentage points behind the next most expensive platform, James Hay, which charges 0.35 per cent.
Mill, however, is quick to stress that advisers and their clients should zoom out and look at the bigger pricing picture.
“One of the things you can’t do is compare pricing in isolation,” says the platform’s CEO. “Novia is a full-service proposition, end-to-end. Other platforms might do elements of what we do, which is why it’s ultimately about value.”
Mill says total cost of administration is a much better indicator of just how expensive a platform is.
“In any industry, there’s always price pressure. But we can’t always compare one platform with another because of the difference in propositions.”
ATS ‘re-emphasised’ need for focus on advice
Between 2010 and 2017, Mill led ATS. He can surmise one lesson from the experience, and that was that the platform’s direct-to-consumer platform hammered home the importance of advice.
“ATS had a direct-to-consumer proposition as well as an adviser proposition. That just re-emphasised my belief that advice is right for the majority of clients.
Advisers can and will be able to advise people with lower assets.Patrick Mill, NoviaIn terms of a business, it is good to be focused on one area. We're [at Novia] very focused on advisers. It’s a very different business than D2C.
“Every day I wake up, and my executives wake up, trying to make Novia the very best intermediated business for IFAs. I think that focus is hugely powerful.”
A handful of advised platform providers, including the likes of AJ Bell, Aviva, and M&G, all operate D2C platforms as well as advised services.
“The number of advisers needs to increase,” says Mill. “As well as the number of advisers giving advice at lower amounts. Advisers can and will be able to advise people with lower assets.
“Platforms are part of that, but not the total solution.”
Ruby Hinchliffe is a senior reporter at FTAdviser
