Allies decide to regroup at West Coast location

WEST Coast Group has continued its rapid growth with the recruitment of former Mellon State manager Adrienne Hall.

Ms Hall will work along side Allan Rickerby, who established West Coast’s corporate superannuation division two years ago.

Since then, the group has picked up nearly 30 corporate superannuation clients and has almost $50 million in funds under advice.

Its newest client is Kalgoorlie-based Hampton Transport Services, one of WA’s largest privately owned haulage groups with 250 employees.

Other clients include home builder JWH Group, formed by former J-Corp chief executive Julian Walter, and mining company Birla Mt Gordon.

Mr Rickerby said his target was to lift funds under advice to $100 million within 12 to 18 months.

West Coast Group was established in 1998 by Kim Hanson and former footballer Andrew Donnelly, with an initial focus on insurance broking.

The group has since widened its activities to also include finance broking, giving it a similar business mix to the old Allied Group, which not coincidentally formerly employed Mr Hanson, Ms Hall and Mr Rickerby.

“Our aim is to get back to what we had at Allied, where we can hand pick the products and services that suit our clients,” Ms Hall said.

Allied was a prominent player in the WA financial services market in the 1980s and early 1990s and employed nearly 100 people at its peak.

It subsequently went through multiple ownership and operational changes before ending up in the hands of US financial services giant Mellon, which completed a major restructuring early this year.

This involved moving its back-office administration interstate and transferring about 75 corporate super clients to SMF Funds Management, allowing Mellon to focus on its larger clients such as Channel 9, Kerry Stokes’ Australian Capital Equity and Len Buckeridge’s BGC.

West Coast Group is pitching itself as a local service provider that can tailor solutions for its Western Australian clients.

Mr Hanson said the group had enjoyed rapid growth, with staff numbers rising to 20 general insurance premiums reaching more than $20 million per annum.

The main focus of its corporate super division is helping companies establish administration systems and processes to ease the burden of superannuation.

It also manages employee communication so that staff understand superannuation and its potential benefits.