A GLASGOW wealth management business intent on shaking up the image of the financial advisory market has launched a graduate scheme with Glasgow Caledonian University with the aim of breathing new life into the profession.
While Murphy Wealth, which relocated from Ayr to Glasgow five years ago, has seen its headcount double to 15 in the past year, managing director Adrian Murphy said the rate at which the firm can grow is hampered by the lack of suitable candidates.
By creating a link with Glasgow Caledonian, where Mr Murphy studied and has guest lectured, the firm hopes to encourage more young people to consider a career in wealth management.
Read more: Murphy Wealth on course for £1m turnover after Glasgow move
“One of the biggest challenges in our industry is getting talent in,” Mr Murphy said.
“I want young, dynamic people - I want to get away from financial advisers being seen as dull and staid.”
This year the firm will take on one graduate from the university’s finance, investment and risk course, with Mr Murphy saying that he “can only see that increasing”.
“The thing we want to do with the team we’ve got is make sure we support them properly,” he said.
“Coming out of that degree graduates only have three more exams to do [to be qualified to give advice] and we support them through those exams.
“That path takes them through to a being a client manager, which is an advisory role in the office that helps to create the next stage of growth.”
Having created the client manager role as a tier below financial adviser, Mr Murphy has also in the last year made changes to the way the firm charges clients for its services.
“We’ve done away with percentage charging, which we’ve never been cool with,” he said.
“We’ve moved to a fixed fee rather than having people pay more just because they have more money.
“There’s also a commercial aspect because if you go into drawdown [where assets are decreasing] you get more of a service [but pay less with percentage charging], but it also seems fairer.”
Having gone through a few years of depleted revenues after moving from Ayr, where Mr Murphy’s father Brian Murphy established the firm in 1977, the business has seen its revenues grow in the past two years.
Read more: Financial advice market ripe for disruption
In the first year after making the move revenues dropped by around £200,000 to £450,000 but have been edging upwards since and are expected to have hit the £1 million targeted for the year that ended in March. Accounts for the year are still being finalised.
The intention is to grow that further, with an office move planned for later in the year - which would allow the firm to double its headcount - expected to help it achieve more ambitious targets.
“We have hefty targets for this year,” Mr Murphy said. “We want to increase our turnover by at least 50% but we’re hoping for more.”
Murphy Wealth targets the entrepreneurial market and aims to advise business owners throughout their working lives as well as in the run up to retirement.
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