Creating a modern advisory business for the new economy

With Neville Azzopardi, founding partner and CEO of Sayers Group.

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About the podcast

Neville Azzopardi, founding partner and CEO of Sayers Wealth, discusses the launch of a new wealth management business and challenging the status quo.

Listen to Neville discuss the opportunities to bring together a more holistic wealth approach for high net worth individuals (HWNIs), addressing the importance of family, the multi-generational family business, technology and the changing face of philanthropy.

Transcript

Matt Heine: Hi, Neville. Welcome to the show.

Neville Azzopardi: Thanks, mate. Really great to be here and great to join you.

MH: And Neville, my colleague just informed me, you're actually our guest number 50. So, quite exciting.

NA: Does that mean I get to raise the bat, Matt? Or I get no credit for that?

MH: Absolutely raise the bat. We're expecting a great discussion today. Really pleased to have you on. And there's a lot of things that we're going to try and cover today. And obviously we'll talk about the launch or the recent launch of Sayers Capital, which is an exciting new wealth management brand. But I was thinking, before we get into that, it'd be great just to get a bit of context and hear your background and how you've ended up doing what you're doing.

NA: Thanks, Matt. It's always a bit scary when you get asked that question because you start sort of reflecting back. And I think I'm coming up to 27 years in this industry or in and around this industry. And I don't like to sort of think I'm that old. But it's been a long journey. For those who are listening that remember the good old days of the old Bankers Trust, which is a brand that we don't see here in Australia anymore. I was a fortunate graduate to come out of university and join the illustrious organisation of Bankers Trust. And I think much of what I am today professionally still comes out of that organisation. It was an incredible brand of people. I used to sort of think of it as the working class investment bank. It was the leading investment bank in the country, yet it had this culture of just people rolling up their sleeves, really egalitarian type of approach. It was extraordinarily merit based and fast paced. But at all times, ensuring a really high level of professionalism.

Professionalism was never compromised. And I think that was ... You know, it was a competitive environment, extremely professional. But it was also a hell of a lot of fun. And I think in some ways, evidenced by the fact that so many years after that organisation sort of no longer exists today, through various acquisitions, there's a real incredible alumni still today. And I don't think that's sort of true of a lot of organisations. But it says just a lot about the culture of the firm.

So yeah, I started at BT. I actually spent about eight years at BT. I spent time in the funds management business on the mutual fund and business development, sort of sales side. And then I had a very rare opportunity as a 26 year old, I was working in Melbourne at the time. No, actually, 25 year old, I think I was then. And I got a phone call from a gentleman by the name of Ian Martin, who was the chief executive globally of BT's asset management business. So, Australia was very much the jewel in the crown. And Ian had been asked to become the global CEO, running all of the US asset management businesses as well. And so much so, I remember he was about 42 at the time and he was on the front page of the AFR. And it was really big news.

And I got a phone call from him, which really scared me, because I'm some junior guy here down in Melbourne. It's like, why am I getting a phone call from Ian? And Ian though, rang and said, "Well, I've heard some good things about you. And I think I'm going to need some help in this new role. Can you move to Sydney, please?" And of course, first thing I did, I think I jumped off that call and I called my parents. And I said, "I've got this opportunity." And six weeks later, I was living in Sydney. And so, I had an incredible opportunity for a couple of years. I really had ringside seats, sitting with the leader of a global organisation. And it was incredible, you know? Sort of sitting in every single investment meeting, every sort of leadership team meeting.

And it's funny, I sort of got to the back end of that as a young upstart thinking, "Geez, I could do that job." But of course, I was shy of about 20 years of experience at the time. And so, I then sort of, together with Ian's support, looked for what else could I do differently? And we sort of looked around within the organisation. It was time for me to go and sort of get some broader skills. And we were setting up actually a private equity firm at the time modelled on BT Capital Partners out of New York. And at that stage, there was four of us that sort of went into the investment bank to set up a proprietary investing private equity business. And so I did that. And again, amazing new experience, because it was a new business for Bankers Trust at the time. I was shown the best way to learn was to get into the middle of a private equity deal.

So, I was sent to New York for a period and worked in New York for a while. And it was rare, for those people who know the private equity space, private equity managers look over 100 deals a year. And you're lucky if you do two, three, or four. Four deals might be a great year. I literally landed in New York the day we started seeing a deal, and I left the day after we signed a shareholder's agreement. And got to work on a deal from end to end. So, it was an amazing experience.

Unfortunately, Bankers Trust got bought by Deutsche at that stage, and so we lost the chequebook, and it wasn't going to happen anymore. And so, some good friends of mine back within the funds management business said, "Well, we've got another opportunity. But we'd like you to consider moving to Malaysia." And I think I was about 27 then. And I couldn't imagine sort of going and living in this distant country. And a very smart ... A good friend of mine, but a very smart individual, Jason [Yetten], probably the master of recruitment, said, "Just come for one week." And I think he knew some of my hobbies and habits. And we did quite a bit of partying, I think, that week, and played a bit of golf and a little bit of karaoke. And so, he knew all the things that I liked. And this was another six week story. Six weeks later, I was living in Malaysia.

And I became the chief executive of a very small funds management business, a retail funds management business. And very different regulatory environment, a long way from where things were in Australia. It was still the old model of tired sales agents only selling one product. And I learned the hard way over there in terms of how to do things differently. And I guess one of the greatest moments I had there was actually participating and actually changing the law to allow people to actually sell multiple different funds management companies to create choice, because it actually did not exist. And I knew our business was never going to get anywhere. I think the big firms had 20,000 agents. I had five. So, I needed to sort of partner with the big banks to distribute our products. And as a result, I had to work with the industry bodies and the regulators to have the law changed. And we did.

And so, after two years of doing that, we went from, I think number 20 out of 21 to number five in the industry. And it was through sort of that legal change, which was an incredible experience as a young bloke. At the time, BT went through another sort of takeover. And so, I didn't want to come back to Australia. I was loving my life as a young bloke overseas. And so, then I ended up joining a joint venture partner, which was a Malaysian investment bank, CIMB. And they were an investment bank that dominated everything they did, every market, 20, 30% market shares in every sector. But the one thing they didn't have was a private banking business or a wealth management organisation.

And so, when the CEO at the time asked me, "Would you be prepared to come and work with us and build a wealth management or private banking business, more the European style private banking?" I said to him, "What do you know about private banking?" He said, "Not much." And I said, "Well, that makes two of us. Let's give it a shot." And it was literally one of those cases, I remember, it was on Sunday morning in the Pan Pacific Hotel of KL literally writing notes on napkins. And you hear those stories, you see it in movies. But I literally did that. We were sketching out ideas on a napkin. And so, we built the first real private bank in Malaysia. And so, I did that for a number of years, at the same time took over their retail stock broking business and sort of combined that into a much broader sort of private client services business.

But there sort of comes a time when you ... And I spent almost six years in KL. And you know, it was time to ... Do I come home? Or do I go somewhere different? And I was very fortunate, my greatest prize sort of leaving Malaysia was I married my wife. I met my wife in KL. And so, certainly Malaysia was very good to me and was really like a second home. So, I did come back to Australia for about a year. And I joined what was the new BT, sort of under the guise of Westpac in the dealer group. And what I found was after a year, I probably missed the excitement of Asia.

One thing led to another, and these things always sort of happen by chance, I was approached by someone to actually go and join UBS. UBS was going through a massive expansion in Asia. And at the time, after 12 months, I literally did a U-turn. And we then moved to Singapore, which really sort of bolstered my time in the private client space, working for ... It was the largest and still is the largest wealth manager in the world, manage over two trillion dollars. And an incredible experience, incredibly fast paced. Of course, that was sort of pre-GFC. And looking after teams in both sort of the Malaysian market as well as the Singapore market. So, it was nice to be sort of back in what was quite familiar territory for me.

But as one of the few private bankers offshore carrying a blue passport, our leaders up in Singapore and Hong Kong were pretty keen at some stage to bring some of that private banking experience back to our wealth management business here in Australia. And so, I had a great opportunity to come back and take responsibility nationally for the advisory side of UBS Wealth Management here in Australia. And another great brand here in Australia. And so, I spent three years doing that. After a period of time, and as we know, UBS Wealth Management isn't here in Australia. They've decided to close the business down. And as we were going through that process, I thought, "You know what? Maybe I'm going to do what the clients do," you know? You have all these wonderful clients.

I think the greatest thing about the wealth management industry is the ability to hear clients' stories. And usually by the time they come into a high net worth business, you see these people with plenty of money. And they're what I describe as having a 20 year overnight success story, because most people only get to hear about it at the end. But when you get to become sort of really personal with the clients, you get to hear that story of what it was like. And mate, I'm sure it's the same for you and your father with Netwealth over 20 years. They're just amazing stories. And so, I hoped that I'd be able to do the same sort of thing and go and become an entrepreneur.

And I looked at a range of different things that didn't quite work out. But one of the things I did work out over the course of the nine months that I was sort of exploring different opportunities was, I just re-fell in love with the wealth management industry. And I realised what I was ... I don't want to say I'm good at, because that's probably for other people to actually sort of determine. But what I think I was okay at and I'm passionate about. And so, I sort of got back into it. And had the good fortune to join JBWere, and another wonderful organisation here in Australia.

And I didn't know a lot about JBWere from the outside. And it was a real joy to be able to sort of get to know the people inside that organisation, quite a wonderful culture. And it's something that stayed in that organisation over a long period of time. So, I did that for four years. Again, I led the advisory force across Australia for four years. It was a wonderful privilege. But there comes a time that you sort of want to be able to do something different. And I guess I'd been seeing a lot of trends in the industry that were emerging, changing, evolving, that I thought I could probably have more influence in being a part of outside the organisation. And I guess a part of it was also being able to scratch that itch a little bit to become an entrepreneur. And so, here I am, having the good fortune to now be able to lead another new brand, as you said, in this space.

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MH: Neville, that's a fantastic story. And you talked about the 20 year success story. I think you really have been a 27 year success story. I'm really interested in your commentary around Bankers Trust. We've had a number of guests actually on the show that have come through that alumni, and they've all said very similar things, what a fantastic culture it was. And I've tried to dig down on that to find out what it was that was so special about the culture. You've also mentioned a number of people, Jason Yetten and Martin. And I'm just interested, how important were those mentors in your career? And what was it that they helped you with that actually made them so important?

NA: Yeah, it's a really great question. And in fact, given I have sort of mentioned names and you do talk about mentors, there's one actually from Bankers Trust for me that actually stands out above everyone was actually Rob Coon. So, Rob, very well-known across the industry. And Rob and I go back a long, long way. And I think there's a few things. So, one, I'll never forget ... Actually, there's so many stories I remember with Rob. But there was a bit of a work hard, play hard mentality. And we did. We did work extremely hard and we did play hard. And we had a lot of fun.

It was a very real environment, probably the best way I can sort of describe it. I think one of the dangers in the finance industry, often we can tend to take ourselves a little bit too seriously. And I guess that's where it goes back to my comment about thinking about Bankers Trust as what I described as the working class investment bank, because we would absolutely hold each other to account. And when people were getting ahead of themselves, they would actually be pulled back in line. And so, I think of someone like Rob as a mentor, it was one was just I guess observing his behaviours. The ability to lead an organisation, but seamlessly integrate with people right across the organisation and not come across as I'm here to come and see the junior people because that's my responsibility as a leader. But to be genuinely authentic and just really try and understand everybody's perspective across an organisation. And treat everybody as a human being. And that wasn't unique to Rob. That's with a number of people I've worked with.

But to genuinely respect people for who they are and what they bring, regardless of what level in an organisation, I think that was really a core part of it. So, observing those behaviours, observing how to have fun. But equally, those mentors actually pull you into line from time to time. And there was times in my career that I was probably trying to get ahead of where I really needed to be. And they would keep you honest as well. And I think it is a part of that culture out of Bankers Trust, and something I still fondly remember. Maybe it was because it was the first organisation I worked with. But look, as you said, Matt, there's a number of other people have sort of spoken the same way. And it's so wonderful.

And even today, as we've just launched Sayers, a number of the comments and well wishes that have come through have been from Bankers Trust people from all over the world. So, it's actually been incredible.

MH: Fantastic. Now, this might be a slightly challenging question to answer, but see how you go. At the age of 27, you'd been tapped on the shoulder for some fairly senior roles. I'm just interested, what was it that you were doing at the time that made you stand out from the crowd? There was obviously a number of big organisations you were working in. Had you put a lot of time and effort into networking and making sure that you knew the right people? Or what was it that made you stand out?

NA: No, actually, I was probably the exact opposite of that, Matt. And I'm actually not sure. So, going back to the culture I talked about before, and I'm not intentionally playing this down. I'm not sure that I did stand out. I think that was the culture of the firm, it just backed young talent. I don't think I was a standout, per se. And you know, it's interesting, when I go and look at many chief executives in the industry today, whether it's across industry super funds, insurance companies, wealth advisory firms, when you go in and have a look around, many of the CEOs today actually came from Bankers Trust.

As I said before, to think at 27 was I sort of standing out as a CEO of a small wealth management business? Well, not really when you think there was a global chief executive of a business that at that time was the fifth largest asset manager in the world. Ian was 42, that's a standout, you know? It was sort of quite incredible. But no, it wasn't about networking for me. I think it was sort of going back to those points I made before around the culture of BT. It was the hard work and I think sort of trying to emulate those professional standards. And I think that's something that I've prided myself on right throughout my career.

I think when you sort of work hard, and that's just a core sort of personal value of mine is just a really strong work ethic, but doing it with the highest professional standards, I think that gets noticed. And I think it's something that's become incredibly important. We've seen that through the Royal Commission. And Commissioner Hayne really focusing on professionalism and ethics, which I think is actually a wonderful focus. But I think that's probably what's sort of really been in my DNA. But again, as I said, I don't think I was a standout. I think I was probably just more fortunate to have that sort of value set and that ethics in the right organisation that probably valued it.

MH: Thank you. Like I said, it was a tough question. One of the comments that I've heard come out more and more recently, and it has been a very tough couple of years for wealth management, is that they feel a bit of the fun has left the industry. And that's probably a really good segue into, I guess what you're doing now at Sayers Capital, because I'm sure that plays a small part or maybe a big part in your decision to launch this new venture. Sayers Capital is relatively or very unknown now by the industry. You've been live for, I think two weeks now. And people may have started to see the brand popping on LinkedIn over the last month or so. Can you talk us through I guess what Sayers stands for and what you're trying to achieve in the market? And maybe how it came about?

NA: Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Look, Sayers ... So, what we've actually just sort of launched is Sayers Wealth in the last couple of weeks. But the Sayers Group organisation, and I think we've sort of flagged, and as our principal, Luke Sayers, sort of flagged recently in the media that as he's termed, Sayers Wealth si the first boat to launch. And watch this space, there will be more boats launching next year. What's the genesis of it? I think there was a number of like-minded people that sort of came together. And Luke, who's a very well-respected business leader in Australia, who's sort of led PWC as chief executive for the last eight years was retiring. And was really looking at what sectors and what industries were ripe for change, for disruption, where there was an opportunity to potentially do better things, not just do things better. And one of those was the wealth space.

And look, I was fortunate to meet Luke a little over a year ago. And we sort of shared views on the industry and where things were changing. And I guess sort of from my side and my fellow colleagues within Sayers Wealth business, we'd been sort of seeing I guess the changes through what clients' needs and desires were. And I'll touch on a few different ones of those. And there's some that are probably sort of more obvious, which is in terms of investment desires were becoming a lot more sort of global. We often hear talk of, not only global, moving into things like alternatives, etc. So, that was certainly sort of emerging. If you take that a little bit further, moving into alternatives is one thing, and private equity funds and hedge funds and commodities, etc. But there was also a lot stronger desire to be moving into sort of direct investment space.

And commonly when we're sort of talking to high net wealth clients, they're often sort of, whether it's through their own networks or even their own experience as entrepreneurs, they like having that sort of connection to the underlying investment. So, I think they're probably some of the earlier changes. But there were sort of much bigger ones than that. A good advisor in the wealth space really has a desire to be able to look after the whole of wealth of a client. And that's sort of becoming sort of increasingly difficult. First and foremost, to look after the whole of wealth of a client, and you're starting to look at capturing all those global opportunities, it requires a lot of expertise. So, that's sort of becoming more challenging to be able to have access to direct investments, not only different sort of channels of sourcing investments. But it also means, again, it's sort of a different sort of skillset required.

But a lot of the high net wealth space we see in Australia is the wealth, not exclusively, but certainly a large majority actually does come through entrepreneurs who have ... We were talking before about that 20 year overnight success, have actually developed that through their organisation. And so, what we've sort of seen is, given the complexities in the industry, and it's hard to get your hands around the entire wealth of a client, that it was sort of hard to engage in that component of the wealth. And something that was so important to the client is actually their underlying business. And so, what's happened in the industry is sort of a stronger focus more on what I describe as the liquid wealth component of the family. And so, we saw that that was a gap that there was an opportunity to really bring together a more wholistic picture, looking at both the business as well as the broader liquid wealth.

Then above that again, because at the moment, I've really just sort of been talking about the investment side of things. I'll go a little bit psychological on you just for a moment. But if you sort of cast your mind back to your old uni days, we've all sort of studied some of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I think if you think about the investment space, investment is ultimately, whether it's sort of planning for retirement or specific legacy, you know? Financial legacy you're looking to leave to your children or otherwise. A lot of that sort of goes to that security element of the hierarchy of needs. But when you start sort of moving up that old pyramid that we studied many years ago, there are high end needs. I think the top pyramid was self-actualization or something like that. I'm not a psychologist. But I think when you start sort of looking at the needs that are beyond the investment, things like family advisory and impact investment start to go to issues around what is the family trying to achieve?

Often for wealthy individuals, it's not about money. It's actually about harmony within the family, you know? Many of us spend a lot of our time trying to sort of create wealth for our security. But there also comes complexity with wealth, and it actually can create challenges within families. And so, that was another element we're sort of seeing an emerging trend, particularly as much as we sort of talk about we're seeing a once in a lifetime transition of wealth over the next generation, and depending on which study you read in Australia, it's anywhere between three or four trillion dollars.

The reality is, that transition itself actually creates complexity within families. It's not just the financial issues or the legal issues, but it's the psychological issues that are caused. And so, we saw that there was a need to really participate in that context as part of whole of wealth.

And the other one sort of around the impact investment space, and we're obviously seeing that as an emerging trend. It's more and more sort of talked about. It's interesting how on the philanthropy side, we've seen philanthropy going from chequebook philanthropy of people writing checks, through to people looking to align themselves with particular causes.

But as one of my fellow partners coined to me a couple of weeks ago, he said, "In many ways, the philanthropy's still about the 5% that gets given away. Whereas, impact investment is around the 95% that you can actually use every day and the impact." So, these are some of the key things.

I guess the other one was ... Sort of really drove us is just that end client experience around technology. It's a fascinating industry that we were driven by data, whether it's investment decisions and charts and account balances and transactions. There's data everywhere. And I know I'm sort of telling the expert here, Matt, given Netwealth's success with technology. But you know, it's just an industry that was sort of ripe to come together and pull it together for clients.

And when you're taking that whole of wealth approach, I think so many clients have been frustrated they've got investment accounts here, superannuation over there, credit cards here, bank accounts offshore, whatever it is. And the ability to pull that together just should exist. And you know, that's something that we believe and we're certainly sort of working towards.

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MH: Neville, you've covered a lot there. And I'm interested, given that some would argue you've launched a brand into a relatively crowded space, have you been surprised at just how difficult it has been to actually get the business to this stage?

NA: Well, look, probably not surprised. I probably went in with my eyes wide open. Look, having one of those opportunities to actually set up a business from scratch in the past, I probably knew a little bit. But I think when I went down that road, setting up a private bank offshore, there was still an investment bank that sat behind me. So, probably, as opposed to this year, sitting down one day, opened the laptop and literally there was nothing on it. I'd just been down to Apple and bought a new laptop and it was brand new. And asking that question of, where do we start?

I knew there were going to be challenges along the way. I just didn't know what they were going to be. So, I wasn't sort of surprised at that. Certainly, one of the challenges that I hadn't anticipated was a global pandemic. I think I left my prior employer just as the news of COVID was sort of starting to break. That was around the 5th or 6th of March. At that stage, everyone was still thinking, "That's that thing that's happening in Wuhan." But you know, and then a couple of weeks later, it really started to impact here in Australia and the borders got closed.

So, the thought of having to sort of build a team and work totally from home, yeah, you could say I wasn't expecting that. But in many ways, it's actually probably served in beneficial. We were forced to use technology. We are trying to be technology focused. Even that in itself has probably informed some of the solutions that we're trying to develop in working with clients. I think it's also accelerated clients' acceptance of the use of technology. You don't always need to get on a plane. You don't need to take a train and go into the city for that meeting. It's certainly nice to, and it's been great to get back into the Melbourne CBD over the last couple of weeks. But yeah.

So, it's a whole different set of challenges. But I think I remember telling you a little while ago, Matt, when you had a great set of results. And I think we actually shared about some of the challenges. And I think you said if everybody ... And I've quoted you a few times, if that's okay. But if it was easy, everybody would be doing it, which goes to your point before, you know? You sort of said, slightly crowded space. I'm actually not sure I agree that it's a crowded space.

I've named a few of the high net worth wealth managers here in Australia. We all know who they are. But you know, there's probably really half a dozen or so that fit in that space. I mean, when I was in Singapore, there was over 50 global private banks in Singapore. Now, in fairness, they also service clients around the Asian region, which is much larger than Australia. But to the extent that each of those wealth managers do an extremely good job in their respective space, we're just trying to do things differently. And I think that's when a number of managers sort of do really well in their swim lane, whether it's specialists in the investment space or whether it's specialists in family office services, whether it's accounting and legal type family office services.

We've got one or two firms that do a great job in the family advisory space, dealing with some of those complex psychological issues within families that I spoke about earlier. And then you've got corporate advisory businesses that sit totally on their own. We saw the difference being to be able to sort of swim across the lanes and sort of play in each of those areas where our niche becomes the client, as opposed to the underlying server, the person will sort of try and adapt around those.

And with an acknowledgement that we won't be able to do all of it ourselves and we really take a mindset that a lot of that comes through partnership, equally our partnership with Netwealth. So, whilst there are a number of good players, the market's big. Australia is still, notwithstanding its size, one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And if I recall, I think sort of GDP per capita is still sitting in the ... Or in terms of millionaires per capita, I think it's the top three in the world still. So, there is still an incredible opportunity here. And I think there is room for everybody.

MH: Neville, I was reflecting on our relationship before this podcast, because we've only met each other during COVID times, so only virtually at the moment. And when we first started communicating, you still had a Gmail account. So, you really were literally a starter. You've recently been quoted in the press as having aspirations to manage in excess of $10 billion, which is certainly ambitious. What's next? How are you going to get there?

NA: Well, look, to be quite honest, the ambition is much higher than that. I was actually trying to play it down for that one. But it's more about trying to be realistic. I think in that same quote, I'll actually fill out the rest of that, was it's not about the numbers, the proof will be in the pudding as to whether the value proposition is right. And if the value proposition is right, clients will come. And hopefully that just sort of means we're doing a good job and that what we're trying to create is meaningful.

How do you get there? Look, I guess there's multiple roads. I think the more people try and understand what we're trying to build, to the extent that it resonates that will come, needless to say throughout the broader Sayers group. As I said, there are more boats to launch. There is a broader ecosystem that we're creating that I think will sort of naturally attract the types of people as clients that want to have an impact on the community, have an impact on change in our society. And you will have seen actually one of the other things that we have just sort of launched publicly that we're a part of, which is the grid here in Melbourne, which is really trying to bring together bright minds and ideas together with capital that can fund those ideas.

And so, one of our partners, Russell Howcroft, who is a part of sort of driving the grid. In chatting to Russ, he sort of loves to hark back to the days of the 1800s, where Melbourne was the richest city in the world, bar none, off the back of the gold rush. But as a country, we perhaps haven't been as innovative as what we've seen in other countries, whether it's Silicon Valley or whether it's out of Israel or a lot of the tech organisations there. And there are wonderful ideas here. And we've had some incredible successes, you know? You look at the Atlassians of the world, you look at Netwealth, you know? There has been some great success stories here. And we'd love to be able to see more. And so, going back to your question of attracting and how to grow, it's really sort of trying to, I think, the one level of creating that ecosystem of people that want to be a part of that change. They want to be a part of that growth. And so, we're trying to sort of facilitate that through the broader Sayers group.

The other is obviously sort of attracting advisors to our proposition. This is not necessarily for everybody. It is a different approach. And it is, in some ways, I guess the way we sort of see ourselves is sort of trying to create a bit more of a multi-family office type of approach, which sort of brings a whole range of services. And so, the advisors that we will attract, I think are those with a similar mindset, that are really saying, "Well, how can I wrap my hands right around the client?" So again, I think to the extent that that proposition resonates with clients, hopefully it resonates with the advisors that feel the same way.

MH: Absolutely. Neville, there's a whole range of topics that I'd love to keep discussing with you from the grid, which sounds like a really interesting and innovative initiative through to how people can have a better impact on the community. We've unfortunately run out of time. But perhaps we can touch base again in six months or so, just to see how you are going and maybe cover off on some of those other topics.

NA: Matt, I would absolutely look forward to doing that. But most importantly, I'm actually looking forward to meeting you face to face, because it's-

MH: Indeed.

NA: It has been an interesting period. So, mate, thank you very much for the time. It's been a great honour and privilege to be able to join you today.

MH: And thank you for being so genuine and transparent in what you're doing. Appreciate it.

NA: Thanks, mate.

MH: Great work.

 

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Views expressed are of the interviewee and may not be the opinion of Netwealth or its related companies.

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Find out three key elements the advice industry needs to achieve for advisers to complete their career makeover.

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