Close Close
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
ThinkAdvisor

Industry Spotlight > Broker Dealers

Partnerships Between Wholesalers And BrokerDealer Yield Benefits

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Partnerships Between Wholesalers And Broker/Dealer Yield Benefits

By

Boston

A session on the current trends in the broker/dealer market, held here at the annual meeting of LIMRA International, focused on how their relationship with the wholesalers that provide the financial products they sell can be improved.

The session, “Independent Broker/Dealer as a Distributor” was presented by Craig Junkins, CEO, First Financial Planners, Chesterfield, Mo., and Theodore Charles, founder, Investors Capital Holdings Ltd., Lynnfield, Mass.

Junkins discussed the Preferred Provider Program at First Financial Planners–a partnership between wholesalers and FFP whereby wholesalers offer products for FFPs broker/dealers to sell.

Through the arrangement, First Financial Planners expects its partners–the wholesalers–to give broker/dealers ideas about what to sell, Junkins said. In doing this, the partners align their interests with the interests of First Financial Planners, the broker/dealers who work through FFP, and their clients, he said.

Benefits of such partnerships include co-branding and support for FFPs registered reps via tactical and strategic planning meetings, Junkins said.

He can tell the selling agreements with wholesalers are working because the registered reps who choose not to sell those products are losing sales. Overall, Junkins said, First Financial Planners registered reps, “are responding very favorably to this.”

Benefits of the partnerships for the wholesalers include cost-effective access to distributors, more stable sales and loyal producers, he said. “Our people tend to be very loyal to the companies that help them.”

Charles discussed an Investors Capital Holdings program involving certified public accountants.

Currently, 233 of the companys advisors are taking part in the program in which they work two or three days a week in a CPAs office. The CPA must have Series-7, 65 and 66 licenses to take part in the program. The CPAs clients are segregated into A, B and C clients, with C-class clients having the least wealth. The advisors who work in the CPAs office generally work with the CPAs A clients.

Its a mentoring process for the CPA, and it works for the advisor because the proceeds of the sales are split 50/50, Charles said.


Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, November 4, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.



NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.