Sandringham Financial Partners' chief executive has said the company will help its advisers contact their clients with technology, but some are stuck in the past.
Tim Sargisson said the company is looking to provide an app and a Skype account for its advisers so they do not have to drive across the country visiting their clients in person.
He questioned whether this was an efficient use of an adviser’s time but said many insisted on continuing with this practice, saying he has heard “all manner of excuses”.
Mr Sargisson said: “It is a real struggle to get these people to think that spending a day out of the office can be time wasted.
“You might have gone to see someone for 10 years but that’s because you wanted to flog them something else, to put in bluntly, and that opportunity doesn’t exist any more.
“Millennials want to see a different way of engaging with advisers and the whole advice chain but we are still using very traditional methods.
“At the moment advisers have got clients with big portfolios and that’s what feeds their business and keeps it running.
“But when those people fall away or the money is gone or handed down to a younger generation, you have to have the mechanisms to talk to that generation.”
Mr Sargisson said the company has updated its back office system, which will allow it to continue growing.
He said: “If we are going to grow to the size we want to reach we needed the IT to work, and that has allowed us to bring in 54 new partners, which is slightly behind what we were planning for but nothing to worry about.
“We need to get another 70 or 80 partners and then we will keep it at around 250 and look to grow our business through our existing clients.”
Mr Sargisson said it remained the company’s target to become Aim-listed within five years but said this was likely to happen towards the end of that target rather than sooner.
damian.fantato@ft.com
