Crystal Wealth Partners is a privately-owned boutique funds management private client practice that provides its clients with both custodial and managed discretionary account services.
According to Mr Wedd, the feedback from his clients is that the “centralisation” of most licensees since FOFA means they “can’t handle what [Crystal Wealth] does for clients”.
“Some dealer groups won’t be able to accommodate this level of customisation because they’re not able to dial it up, roll out 100 of them and then say ‘there you go’,” he said.
Providing managed accounts to clients is by necessity more of a “hands on” service, said Mr Wedd.
“I’m not saying you can’t have managed accounts in a dealer group, but I wouldn’t want to be running a ‘managed account for hire’ service to other dealer groups,” he said.
Most dealer groups are often beholden to the policies of their institutional owners, which limits their flexibility, said Mr Wedd.
In additional, institutionally-owned advice groups tend to struggle when a client rings up and says ‘I’m not sure if you can help me’, he said.
“[The client might say] ‘I’m looking for someone I can feel some confidence in experience, expertise and, dare we use the word, independence to make that assessment’,” said Mr Wedd.
Such an investigation could well lead to nothing happening – that is, the adviser telling the potential client that there “isn’t much they need to do”, he said.
But if the client identifies they have a need for advice and a plan is produced, generally they will ask for the adviser’s help – “but it’s not a guarantee that’s going to happen”, said Mr Wedd.
Crystal Wealth has been in operation for 18 months and has $140 million funds under advice.
The firm offers four managed account services: Crystal Optimum (model portfolios), Crystal Tailored (which gives Crystal Wealth a discretionary portfolio management mandate), Crystal Choice (a discretionary mandate with a regular client review) and Crystal Prime (a more open agreement with both administration and advice).
