Broker-Dealer NFP Securities Changes Its Name, Sharpens Its Focus

What kind of advisor is NFP Advisor Services looking to attract to its model?

"We're less channel specific than profile specific," Poer says. "We're looking for advisors who want to go to that next level—not just good salespeople, but people who want to take a practice and make it a business." That means reps of other independent BDs, but also in the breakaway broker space.

NFP's strategy in serving advisors is to "focus on a day in the life of a financial advisor and their staff—in terms of process and engagement, that staff is as important as the advisor," says Poer. Like many BDs, NFP Advisor Services Group does have an advisory council made of up of reps and advisors, but Poer points out it also has a staff advisory council, since the advisor's assistant and staff is "where the rubber meets the road."

Poer cites as NFP's guide to helping its reps and advisors the findings of a 2008 study by the Aite research group that the average advisors spends 34% of his or her time in client-facing activities, but that the use of efficiency-improving technology raises that client time to 52%."The more integration points we can offer an advisor," the more efficient they become and the more time they can spend with existing clients and getting new clients, says Poer. "Their needs are account aggregation and CRM and portfolio accounting, and we integrate all of that into one workstation—we create more time for them to grow their businesses and reduce their staffing needs."  

After all, he says, the independent advisor universe is "still a cottage industry" where advisors are "forced to plug functional holes—like with a CRM system or account aggregation." That leads to advisors taking steps to "solve for their symptoms rather than the broader disease." Yes, providing the right products is important, but NFP's approach is to provide access to all the traditional investment vehicles, though he says "we don't opine on money managers," and if an advisors wants to manage assets on his own, they can do so at the model level. But since NFP wants its advisors to "focus on the ultra-high-net-worth space," it focuses on providing access to alternative investments. Poer also sees benefits to wealth managers in NFP's strength as "one of the largest providers of insurance and benefits."

NFP is a compelling choice, he argues, for those wealth managers who are "looking at both sides of the balance

sheet for clients" and might use everything from long-term care insurance to property and casualty insurance coverage for issues like wealth transfer. After all, he says, "business owners and executives who have high net worth have personal needs and corporate needs" that go beyond investing into personal and corporate risk management, and providing that "from one central location" has business-building benefits for the advisor and wealth preservation benefits for the client.

While declining to say exactly what NFP Advisor Services Group's growth goals are—it currently has 1,000 independent contractor reps—Poer did say NFP is looking for "intentional growth—our desire is to grow relationships and align ourselves with like-minded professionals" who he characterizes as "quality high-end advisors" who appreciate having access to key executives at the firm. In a typical 200-rep broker-dealer firm, for instance, he says NFP's "fit is really right only for the top 10% of those reps."

As for the overall advisor universe and the effects of Dodd-Frank, Poer says he expects to see continued consolidation, especially among smaller broker-dealers like that hypothetical 200-rep BD. However, Poer doesn't think "you'll see a lot of small broker dealers being acquired. You have to have a high degree of confidence that you will be able to retain all those advisors—there's high risk there."