Quilter chief Feeney reveals growing advice arm ambitions

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Quilter chief Feeney reveals growing advice arm ambitions

The chief executive of Quilter has said growing the company's advice arm through acquisition will be a priority now the demerger from Old Mutual has gone ahead.

Quilter demerged from Old Mutual and floated on the London Stock Exchange at the end of last month, rebranding from Old Mutual Wealth in the process.

Paul Feeney said the company recently had to invest in the necessary infrastructure to become a listed company, including putting money into its finance, risk and investor relations departments.

He said: "We have been investing in the development of Quilter substantially over the past few years. This has included growing the businesses through acquisitions and technological upgrades.

"Our initiatives over the next number of years will be further growth of our businesses. Including targeted bolt-on acquisitions, primarily through Private Client Advisers, development of investment propositions and solutions and implementing our platform transformation programme."

Private Client Advisers is Quilter's in-house advice business, which was launched in 2015 and has been expanding through a succession of acquisitions since then.

As part of the company's rebrand to become Quilter, the advice arm will become known as Quilter Private Client Advisers in the "near future", Mr Feeney said.

The rest of the business will be rebranded over the course of the next two years, including the platform, which will become known as Quilter Wealth Solutions.

Quiler is currently going through a replatforming process with FNZ, the same company which helped Aviva replatform.

Aviva users complained of issues with the replatform.

Mr Feeney said: "We will not comment on the issues that others in the industry have faced. What we will say is that re-platforming is a complex process.

"We have been watching other migrations closely and have learned from their experiences.

"It has also provided invaluable experience for FNZ and we will consider with them what went well and what didn’t in order to minimise disruption.

"In order to minimise disruption we will be doing a phased migration."

damian.fantato@ft.com