Old Mutual's plan to attract wealthy clients

The life insurer says it will also spend about R150m next year expanding its advisory team.

"We have sourced the capability in terms of the information technology required," Old Mutual Retail Affluent's managing director Ian Williamson said in an interview last week.

"It's an active strategy to try and continue to expand the advisory force. Over the next three years we expect between 3% and 5% growth a year on the advisory force. For the next year Old Mutual will spend R150m to grow its advisory force," Williamson said.

But Williamson said there were no plans to start a lending operation within Old Mutual Wealth, which forms part of Retail Affluent, as that would be left to its subsidiary, Nedbank Private Wealth.

Earlier in the year, Old Mutual Wealth bolstered its scope by acquiring the Fairheads Trust, a niche fiduciary trust and investment management group.

Commenting on the decision to expand the advisory team, Williamson said that the Retail Affluent division had 250 brokers who market Old Mutual products to brokerages. Old Mutual has 2,700 tied agents.

The Retail Affluent Business in SA is the biggest sales contributor to Old Mutual's Emerging Markets cluster unit, which includes the Mass Foundation, Corporate and Old Mutual Investment Group SA.

"We have done an analysis of Old Mutual in the country and we believe that there are areas where we are under-penetrated and areas where we are overweight. Part of the recruitment of the advisory force is to fill those gaps," Williamson said.

He said his division was underweight in Gauteng, when it came to catering for the black middle-class and professionals.

Williamson said Old Mutual had neglected this market and had not been good at putting the right advisory skills in place for these clients.

Retail Affluent caters for the middle-income to wealthy client and offers risk protection and investments solutions. It has about 2m customers and competes with the likes of Liberty, Discovery and Momentum.

Williamson said the company was targeting senior public servants and state-owned enterprises. "We have about 80 advisers deployed to cater for senior public servants," Williamson said.

Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge