BT Financial Group’s head of distribution, Don Sillar, is just the most senior of dozens of sales and backoffice staff whose roles will be made redundant next month.
It is understood Sillar will be stood aside in favour of co-heads of distribution, with NSW key account manager Jackie Boylan adding Queensland to her responsibilities, and Victorian manager Damien Murphy adding the rest of the states to his watch. The pair will report to head of wrap and wealth solutions, Chris Freeman, while Sillar will be redeployed – some sources suggest to help with any Westpac/St George integration. Other roles to be made redundant include that of Leanne Gregory-Aylett, who only joined BT from MLC a year ago as head of distribution for corporate super, and Harry Kontopos, head of national sales strategy. A BT spokesperson, while not commenting on individuals or the overall number of redundancies announced to staff last week, said most of the roles affected were in backoffice administration or team assistants. “;In light of current market conditions, BT Financial Group has assessed business requirements and made a number of changes to support roles and some management positions,”; the spokesperson said. “;We are now working with people affected by these changes to find alternative roles across the Group and are already in discussions with a number of individuals to confirm new opportunities.”; BT actually had positive net funds flow up until at least March 31, according to data manager at Plan For Life, Damien Morris, with a $642 million gain for that quarter and $7.4 billion for the preceding year into all retail products. “;Although there’s no doubt it would have tailed off since then,”; Morris said.
Future Fund chief investment officer Ben Samild said that FY24 has been a great year for alpha creation, thanks to strong returns in equities and, unusually, across multiple hedge fund strategies all at the same time. He reflected the past few years have been “a difficult time to be an asset owner and to generate positive returns for risk assets” but the Future Fund is tracking well of its long-term mandate.
Simon Hoyle and Darcy SongSeptember 4, 2024
