affinity takeover by Wealth & Work group

Seamus_King

I have been a client of affinity financial awareness, independent financial advisers, for a number of years and have built up a good working and successful relationship with the firm. I have just been advised by e-mail that affinity has been taken over by the Wealth & Work group, of whom I know nothing. Should I be considering changing my financial advisor. Views & guidance would be most welcome.
Thanks
Seamus

Malthusian

No idea. Give the adviser who deals with you a ring and ask a) whether he is planning to stay with Wealth & Work b) whether he will remain an independent financial adviser (be very specific on those three words) or whether any restrictions will be placed on his ability to advise on the whole of the market.

I am assuming that Affinity are an Independent Financial Adviser as you said they are. However when I looked on their website, there is no mention of them being an Independent Financial Adviser, and some pages that used to use the words "Independent Financial Adviser" (according to Google's cache) have been removed. Which I feel is a bad sign. Usually if a firm is an Independent Financial Adviser it is not afraid to say so as it is a protected term and a prestigious one.

dunstonh

I have been a client of affinity financial awareness, independent financial advisers, for a number of years and have built up a good working and successful relationship with the firm.

That is unusual in my experience. Those that I know have used them in the past have consistently said they usually end up with different advisers each time due to high turnover.

I thought they were not IFAs but restricted. Certainly some of the products I have seen them use over the years were well past their sell by date in terms of what you would expect from an independent, let alone a restricted sales rep.

jbuchanangb

An experience - 10 years ago I used Affinity to help me invest redundancy lump sum. Long term investment - left it alone and it did OK.
Earlier this year I called on them again to review the position as I had inherited some money and needed to invest it, at same time review the 10 year old stuff.
Received what seemed like professional independent advice, payed substantial fee for advice, moved all funds around.
Then Affinity taken over by W@W. Along comes a new representative, keen to tell me he is not a financial advisor. Also keen to tell me that what I had just done - invest on his predecessor's advice for a 5 to 10 year period, would not have been what he would have recommended.

He was clearly angling to persuade me to move all those funds again, presumably in such a way as to fleece me for some more fees. Now I am not a financial advisor, but one message I have gleaned is that when you invest, you invest for the long term, it is not prudent to invest, and then in less than 6 months pull out of all you have done and do something different.

I was not pleased. I have written a stiff letter to the CEO of Affinity/W@W expressing my displeasure, and will be interested to see how he responds.

bigfreddiel

dunstonh wrote: »

That is unusual in my experience. Those that I know have used them in the past have consistently said they usually end up with different advisers each time due to high turnover.

I thought they were not IFAs but restricted. Certainly some of the products I have seen them use over the years were well past their sell by date in terms of what you would expect from an independent, let alone a restricted sales rep.

Surely Seamus should know if he was dealing with an IFA, after all he was with them for a number of years?

fj

bigfreddiel

jbuchanangb wrote: »

An experience - 10 years ago I used Affinity to help me invest redundancy lump sum. Long term investment - left it alone and it did OK.
Earlier this year I called on them again to review the position as I had inherited some money and needed to invest it, at same time review the 10 year old stuff.
Received what seemed like professional independent advice, payed substantial fee for advice, moved all funds around.
Then Affinity taken over by W@W. Along comes a new representative, keen to tell me he is not a financial advisor. Also keen to tell me that what I had just done - invest on his predecessor's advice for a 5 to 10 year period, would not have been what he would have recommended.

He was clearly angling to persuade me to move all those funds again, presumably in such a way as to fleece me for some more fees. Now I am not a financial advisor, but one message I have gleaned is that when you invest, you invest for the long term, it is not prudent to invest, and then in less than 6 months pull out of all you have done and do something different.

I was not pleased. I have written a stiff letter to the CEO of Affinity/W@W expressing my displeasure, and will be interested to see how he responds.

Good luck with the letter, I'm sure they will take notice!

Actually I'm sure your last comment was tongue-in-cheek, made me giggle tho'.

fj

dunstonh

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Surely Seamus should know if he was dealing with an IFA, after all he was with them for a number of years?

fj

Most consumers dont know the difference between FAs and IFAs. One of the consumer groups did some research a few years back and found over half the people seeing tied agents thought they were seeing an IFA. So, its not really possible to assume anything.

jbuchanangb

It transpires that Wealth at Work operate as Discretionary Fund Managers, not as Independent Financial Advisors. As I do not want to sign over any of my money to be invested by them at their discretion, and as they have told me that they will not continue to operate the investments placed on their advice in May this year, I have dispensed with their services.
I intend to operate my investments on an execution only basis until I need some more advice, and then I will seek out an Independent Financial Advisor.

margaretsimpson

I have had all the contact described in other posts but did not read them first. So on 21 November I signed authority for Wealth at Work to cash in my holdings previously managed by Affinity. These were held in Old Mutual and I can see they were cashed in on 13 December.
I have just had a call from my previous advisor who worked for Affinity and he has told me background to the take over and what happened to most of the Affinity advisors. According to him they were gagged from contacting clients but have just won a case in the High Court setting the gag aside. So they are contacting previous clients to encourage them to somehow change back as Wealth at Work are not IFAs and therefore do not consider the whole range of possible investments.
As you can imagine I do not know what to think so would be interested to hear from anyone else who has one of these calls or has other relevant information on if it is possible to change your mind, especially as the original investments have been cashed or where to turn for advice
:(

dunstonh

or has other relevant information on if it is possible to change your mind, especially as the original investments have been cashed or where to turn for advice

change of mind is possible and the "new" IFA can put you back where you want to be unless that contract is no longer available.

You mention Old Mutual Wealth. From about 2006 until 2012 they had one of the cheapest pensions on the market. That pension version is no longer available now at that price. However, the "new" IFA would be required to run the analysis again using current products/platforms and see who comes out best.

jbuchanangb

Hello Margaret

I am so sad to hear what has happened to you. It was exactly what I thought they were going to try with me, which I why I sacked them.
If your funds are now in cash, but in W@W's control, you could immediately tell them to deliver the funds back to you, and cancel any agreement or contract you gave them to manage your funds "at their discretion".
If you trust your previous advisor, who worked for Affinity, he may be able to help you to place the cash back in the OMW "platform" in sensible investments or some other sensible place.
The problem is in all this you will have been burned by all sorts of fees and charges.
On the other hand, you could let W@W manage your funds. If they have done a thorough investigation into your attitude to risk etc etc.

In between all this surely there is some case to talk to the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, because you are not happy with what W@W have done.