Ken Davy Announces Launch of New Restricted National

Simply Biz founder Ken Davy today announces the launch of new National aimed at the Restricted Advice market.  Simply Biz strongly backs the IFA sector to prosper post RDR and has said that this will not change.  Davy commented “Simply Biz is recognised as the standard bearer for independent advice and we are confident that the great majority of the firms we serve will continue to operate as directly regulated IFAs post RDR.  Indeed our latest membership survey shows that 93% of firms intend to remain independent after December 2012.  Nonetheless Simply Biz have always stated that it would not turn its back on the restricted sector, and today I am pleased to announce that we will be launching a new type of restricted offering, aimed at a completely different sector of the market.  We believe that part of the market is currently underwhelmed with old style offerings which have gone stale and deliver little value. We aim to change that and launch the most innovative and successful National in the market. Make no mistake we are not following the market, we aim to lead it.”

“When we launched Simply Biz we said we were going to light a fire under the financial services sector by breaking the mould on compliance and support costs whilst delivering high quality services.  We have done this in spades and now, as the UK’s largest independent support provider, serve well over 2,000 IFA firms and in excess of 5,000 advisers and post RDR will continue to do so.  However in addition, and in line with our promise not to turn our back on the restricted sector we have identified this major new opportunity which will enable us to deliver fantastic benefits to the many high quality advisers who prefer not to be directly regulated.”

“The MD of this exciting new company will be Steve Braidford who as Group Sales Director of Simply Biz and Managing Director of the New Model Business Academy has driven the outstanding membership growth of both Simply Biz and the NMBA.”

Commenting on his appointment Steve Braidford said “I am delighted to lead this fantastic new business.  Having worked with 1000s of advisers over the years I have seen all too often that their growth is hampered by the very organisations which should be helping them succeed.  I am determined to provide advisers with the opportunity to prosper by doing what they do best which is spending time with clients.  I am equally determined to dramatically reduce their administration and compliance burdens.  We will be giving advisers the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a national brand, whilst reducing costs and significantly increasing their profitability in the post RDR world.”

Ken Davy added “Let me be quite clear, this will be a ground breaking proposition which has the potential to make a bigger impact on the sector than the launch of Simply Biz. It will be regulatory friendly and client focussed.  Steve Braidford is ideally placed to lead the new business forward and has already submitted the Company’s application to the FSA and started to recruit his new team.  Significant interest from advisers is also anticipated in advance of the formal launch which will take place once FSA authorisation is completed.  Further details of this important new development including, its name, will be released shortly.”