In a letter sent to members on Monday, managing director of the Sesame Bankhall Group, Stephen Gazard said the firm will wind down the school and redeploy resources to other areas of the business.
“We will continue to support existing FAS students, but we will no longer recruit new people into the school because we will not be able to offer them a prospective home in wealth firms within our appointed representative network,” he said.
At the end of March, the UK-based business announced it would be closing its advisory network for investment advisers as it works to restructure the company.
The Financial Adviser School offers training for those wishing to pursue a career as an adviser, helping them gain technical knowledge, and the appropriate skills and behaviours to provide professional advice.
Starting this week, Sesame will be holding a series of consultation meetings with staff across the group who are affected by its proposals.
“Sensitive time”
“This is obviously a sensitive time for staff but I wanted to assure you that there is no immediate change to your day-to-day business operations as a result of today’s update,” Gazard added.
The letter also reiterated that existing advisers within its appointed representative network should expect to receive three months contractual notice before 27 April.
They will have until the end of July to make a decision as to whether they want to become directly authorised with Bankhall – which offers a support service for directly regulated firms – move to Sesame’s “network partner”, or leave the group altogether.
The network partner – widely thought to be Old Mutual’s Intrinsic – is expected to be announced by the end of next week.
