Previously known as the Planners’ Report Card, this year not only brings a new name — the Dealers’ Report Card — but also a new firm, two new categories and the highest number of advisors ever surveyed for this instalment in Investment Executive’s Report Card series.
The name change reflects the evolving nature of the mutual fund dealer world, in which many firms have developed a “full-service” offering by adding an investment dealer, an insurance MGA, even banking services, to the mutual fund dealer platform. “Dealers” more accurately reflects that reality.
This year, IE researchers Neil Acharya, Aaron Broverman, Aeden Fowley and Vera Ovanin surveyed 580 advisors from 15 firms across Canada, including newcomer In-de-pendent Planning Group Inc. of Ottawa.
In the case of Waterloo, Ont.-based Manulife Securities Inter-national Ltd., which acquired Bur-lington, Ont.-based Berkshire-TWC Financial Group Inc. this past summer, the 2008 Report Card amalgamated both groups of advisors under Manulife. And although some former Berkshire advisors may not be entirely familiar with their new firm, it made no sense to rank a firm that no longer exists.
To compare this year’s ratings to last year’s — when both Manulife and Berkshire were surveyed — IE averaged the two sets of 2007 scores and compared them with the 2008 ratings. As such, the increases and decreases in Manulife’s ratings seen on page C4 and throughout this Report Card are not a direct comparison to Manulife’s 2007 ratings.
This year’s Report Card has also added two new categories to the mix for advisors to rate their firms: marketing support and support for financial planning.
In previous years, the Report Card has focused on the firms’ advertising and found that although some advisors may not care much for their dealers’ advertising campaigns, they do value individual marketing support.
Also, because “planning” is part of the offering of many firms, IE wanted to know how important support for financial planning is to advisors’ practices and how they rate their firms on the fulfilment of this practice.
This year, IE also asked advisors how many households they served rather than individual clients. Over the course of previous years’ surveys, IE has discovered that the majority of advisors can more accurately provide the number of households they serve than individual clients.
One mainstay from 2007 and previous years was the scoring method. Advisors were asked to provide two scores: one to rate the firm’s performance and the other to indicate how important that category is to their business.
Advisors scored firms on a scale of zero to 10, with zero meaning “poor” or “unimportant” and a 10 meaning “excellent” or “critically important.” Individual scores were then tallied to determine the average score for each category and for each individual firm.
— CLARE O’HARA