There were solid funds under advice (FUA) gains across the board in the latest IFA Dealer Group Survey and financial advisers and dealer group heads are confident the money will keep flowing in.
Brady and Associates principal Paul Brady aced the survey with a gain of $25 million or 9 per cent to $305 million.
Brady, the sole financial planner in his Sydney city-based business, attributed his FUA rise to increasing client numbers, referrals and steady portfolio growth.
He admits his FUA for the first half of 2008 has taken a hit because of a volatile stock market due to the global credit crunch and concerns about a United States recession.
However, he remains confident about the future as his clients have added cash to the market "cautiously and gradually" and will continue to do so if confidence recovers.
"The only thing I can say is that the market always recovers," he says.
"Our challenge is to focus on doing what we are doing well [and] not be distracted by short-term volatility [and] earn the confidence and trust of our clients and enjoy the benefit of their advocacy and referrals helping grow the business."
Premium Wealth Management, which appointed former Australian rugby union player Chris Saunders as chief executive officer, came second thanks to strong inflows and client conversion.
The Sydney-based dealer group's FUA advanced $21.7 million for each of its 51 advisers.
"The significant inflow of money into superannuation at the end of last financial year and obviously the conversion rate of accounting clients into financial planning is quite high," Saunders says.
The money manager for the affluent, Macquarie Wealth Management (MWM), came third with an FUA per adviser surge of 33 per cent or $19.6 million to $80.7 million. Strong adviser support, fantastic resources, wealthy clients and superannuation inflows underpinned the gains, according to MWM head Jane Watts.
"We are a growing business, we have a strong team, the MWM brand is certainly one of our strengths so we are absolutely confident that our growth will continue," Watts says.
Changing target clients last year helped boost the FUA per adviser of Brisbane-housed financial planning business Goodman Private Wealth.
The firm now targets only $1 million-plus clients and built special offices designed for families who have over $5 million.
Its FUA per adviser hiked $15 million to $140 million for its two advisers.
However, some groups experienced a flat end to their 2007 or even a decline.
Kingston Capital, WHK Group and Fred Parrish Financial Services stayed flat for the period, maintaining $171.4 million, $67.6 million and $73.3 million, respectively.
The biggest declines in FUA per adviser came from AssetPlan Finacial Services.
The Melbourne-headquartered planning business saw a decrease of $18.7 million.
"We have put on three new advisers who came in with zero funds under management and we are training them up," AssetPlan director Colin Taylor says.
Taylor says some of the firm's clients are a bit nervous because of the market volatility but he is confident equities will recover and FUA will increase.
"It always recovers, eventually," he says.
