Legacy advice issues rain on Hartley’s Insignia parade

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

23 July 2024

Insignia Financial chief executive, Scott Hartley has expressed disappointment that the firm has had to significantly increase its provisioning for legacy quality of advice compliance issues.

The increased provisioning somewhat overshadowed Insignia’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that it had successfully completed the separation of Rhombus Advisory on 1 July with Insignia retaining a 37% stake.

Rhombus Advisory comprises Consultum, RI Advice and Tenfifty.

Hartley said that, importantly, Insignia expected that “this is our final provision increase related to the legacy advice remediation program which is now substantially complete, and that funding the advice and product remediation increases announced today will not require a capital raise from shareholders”.

The adverse news around increased advice remediation provisioning together with Insignia’s OnePath Custodians entering an court enforceable undertaking with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) detracted from better news around increased net inflows and Insignia’s expectation that it will exceed its already upgraded EBTDA guidance with FY 24 UNPAT expected to be in the range of $212 million to $218 million.

On the financial advice front, Insignia said that there were 1,086 financial advisers in the Insignia Financial network as at 30 June 2024 comprising 200 in the Professional Services (Employed) channel and 886 advisers across Advice Services Channels.

It noted a reduction of eight advisers in the Professional Service Channel “reflects the impact of cost optimisation and efficiency initiatives”.

The bottom line however is that at 1.086 advisers, Insignia saw a reduction of 14 advisrs over the quarter with Funds Under Administration decreasing by $1.4 billion to $222 billion while Funds Under Management increase by $464 million to $89.4 billion.