AMP 'workshopping' with advisers

AMP will work through the implications of its life business sale and upcoming wealth IPO with the advisers potentially affected, its New Zealand managing director Blair Vernon says.

Thursday, October 25th 2018, 12:41PM

AMP will work through the implications of its life business sale and upcoming wealth IPO with the advisers affected, its New Zealand managing director Blair Vernon says.

It revealed today that it will sell its insurance business to Resolution Life, and plans to sell its New Zealand wealth management and advice businesses via an IPO next year.

There would be no changes to the terms of existing life insurance policies and no changes for AMP’s wealth management or general insurance customers, including AMP KiwiSaver members, it said.

AMP has 250 advisers in its qualifying financial entity, 45 through AdviceFirst and also distributes through hundreds of other financial advisers.

Vernon said little would change as a result of the IPO. The advice groups themselves would not be for sale, but the distribution arrangements with them.

“We have a range of distribution arrangements with advisers in all different shapes and forms, we need to work through those arrangements with advisers, “ he said.

He said the changes required in the life sale to Resolution were not something that was foreign to AMP – it had worked through these sorts of changes when it integrated AXA into the business.

“It’s not unfamiliar.”

The IPO would also not have any material impact, he said, though there was work to do on that and more discussions to have with advisers.

“Our adviser partners are their own business. The extent to which their arrangements with us [are part of the deal], they themselves are their own business.”

He said a New Zealand entity that had been listed might have more in common with those advisers as a standalone business than the large corporate AMP was at present.

The mechanics of selling closed books of business, as in the AMP Life deal, were complex, he said. The purchase required a depth of knowledge about insurance but Resolution life was equipped to handle that.

Vernon said the fact that Resolution did not have a current market presence in New Zealand meant there was more scope for AMP staff to pursue opportunities with that business in this country.

Tags: AMP