Dealer group Elders Financial Planning has hired five authorised representatives since January and is looking to appoint a significant number of advisers in rural and regional Australia throughout 2010, the group has announced.
Elders Financial Planning chief executive Helen Lorigan said those hired included external candidates as well as professionals from within Elders Insurance who had recently been accredited to join the dealer group.
"By leveraging our internal networks within Elders, we've been able to better align ourselves with other divisions and hopefully create better cross-referral opportunities as well," Lorigan told InvestorDaily.
"We've also hired a national recruitment manager, who will be responsible for sourcing quality external candidates from across the country, in particular from rural and regional centres and from some metropolitan areas as well."
Lorigan said the dealer group was keen to pursue a two-pronged recruitment strategy, whereby it would look to hire candidates from within and outside the wider Elders group.
"It is an exciting time to join Elders Financial Planning because it is not only a highly-recognised brand in rural and regional Australia, it is also a group that is now backed by the dealer services of Millennium3," she said.
The ING-owned Millennium3 dealer group acquired a 51 per cent stake in Elders Financial Planning in October last year and at the same time signalled intentions to grow Elders Financial Planning from 35 to 150 advisers within three years.
Lorigan said Elders Financial Planning would also look to launch new products and services going forward but that its first goal was to increase adviser numbers so it could better support the needs of Elders' clients.
