Reid, who joined RLAM earlier this year has already been busy on the recruitment front and has made fast work of his intention to grow the firm’s wholesale distribution team from the four-person team it was when he arrived to an 11-strong unit.
He was the fifth member. Following him were three staffers in hybrid roles, covering both sales and sales support. Numbers nine and 10 came in October when the firm announced the appointment of both Filippo Madonia from M&G and Paul Keogh from Kames to look after Scotland and the South East of England respectively. The eleventh hire remains in process, according to the firm.
“What we are trying to do is build a bigger footprint of people in the regions that will be whole of market, that can look after both discretionary and advisory clients,” Reid explained, adding: “Distribution has changed in certain parts of the advisory market as fund rating agencies and other key strategic relationships are formed. As a result, advisers want to be engaged in different ways.”
According to Reid, the role of distribution is becoming more consultative; more of a support role.
“One of the catalysts for this change in the distribution world is the shift to a smaller number of much more influential decision makers. When I started, you had thousands of individual decision makers, but the market has become much more centralised,” he said.
But, contrary to some, he does not believe that should necessarily mean a reduction in the number of people on the ground.
“If you have a good kitbag of products, a relatively broad selection of stuff across asset classes, you need to be out there; it won’t all be done from London. If decisions increasingly become centralised that is fine but you still need people to fulfil that consultative role because that becomes the key differentiating factor for an adviser in many cases. That service element becomes increasingly important.”
