The benefits of locum membership include the ability to receive introductions from firms requiring a locum - perhaps for illness or following death.
For just £25 per month including VAT IFAC will act as your Locum.
IFAC is herself nominated as locum by many firms, and of course from time to time are called up for our services in this regard. And when it comes to submitting cases to providers and advising customers, we call on our locum panel. Nominate IFAC as your locum.
You can do this by completing the contract attached, just click on "Apply now"
This puts us under the responsibility to run your business on your demise or illness.
We currently do this for about 20 firms, who are pleased to know that we are experienced in this field.
Chairman Charlie Palmer has this to say.
" I have run a network (Financial Ltd, now Sanlam) of over 500 advisers for ten years or so, and of course with scale you do get about one death each year. In every single case the heirs were left disappointed by the delays following death in negotiating a price for the goodwill, and then more delays in getting signatures etc. The goodwill lasts about six months for a sole practitioner and it seemed criminal to me that even though many of these deaths were signposted to us well in advance, and the dying IFA had meetings etc with us, the chaotic post death situation always reverted because no contracts were binding. Most locum agreements are nothing more than handshakes, but this agreement by IFAC is quite unique because it forces the IFAC to act on the company's behalf to achieve an orderly exit to the benefit of heirs. No longer will you the survivor have to put up with family members asking for a delay "while I check that with my brother in law who knows about these things" or while the executor discusses it with the family solicitor who, guess what? "I suggest we hold out to see if we can get a higher price". You have a maximum of a six month window post death and the value will halve within three months and halve again every month thereafter."
Why the panel of locums?
The IFAC locum agreement covers all areas of the firm.
This is very difficult for any one firm to manage, because of the complexity of IFA permissions today and the geography of clients... so we cover the various tasks from our own resource and by pulling in others who are listed on our panel of locums.
The CF1 role of course has to be approved by FCA / co.house but 90% of what any IFA/DFM does is non-reg, so it is that part of the biz that we focus on. The actual advice can be carried out by other CF30's either after they get approved with FCA or via their own firms. There is a fairly expensive fee you pay per hour etc to get these IFAs to work for you, but this can be easily explained below, and the key role for IFAC is to "keep the drums a'rolling"
The IFAC locum agreement is unique because it binds and commits the locum to working in the sponsor firm's best interests.
This in our experience almost never happens, because when someone dies (and let's be clear, short term illness is almost never a problem) then all hell lets loose - as explained above.
However in every single case chaos followed death as the widow sought an exit via trade sale. Within three months the biz is worth 50% and within six it is worth nil. And these months are inevitably filled with executors / family members / trustees / lawyers etc saying "best to get a second opinion" etc and dragging it all out as the clients drift away. Often the so called locum just nicks the best clients and waves goodbye. This contract here commits IFAC by contract to working for the shareholders to send out letters to all clients to reassure them and to work for the company, and not for the IFA own interest. Charlie Palmer set this arrangement up in reaction to his disappointment/frustration with the previous locum arrangements he had witnessed.
For a DFM as with Sole practitioner IFAs and GI brokers, this locum arrangement is all mandatory, and we would install our man as locum DFM on day one - and provide your firm and the FCA with the required comfort that a sensible risk mitigation plan is in place. About us
Interested? click the button "Apply now".
and we will be in touch on receipt to arrange the necessary paperwork - permissions etc
Apply now for IFAC to be appointed as your locum, and provide you with a Locum agreement for a relevant firm near you plus FCA number for you to supply to the FCA, and to help step in when there is a problem.
If you send us an apply we will send you a confirmation email shortly after that and start work on it immediately.