Top 100 Financial Advisers: Charlie Viola, Pitcher Partners

‘I only want to see people with, you know, $5m or $10m,’ admits Charlie Viola of Pitcher Partners. ‘Which means we’re not for everybody.’

Charlie Viola says says the need for advisers to “go through everything” even if a client wants advice on one or two issues. Picture: Britta Campion

Charlie Viola has been high on our list since it was launched seven years ago and the Pitcher Partners managing director has seen the ebb and flow of the big debates around the number of advisers and their fees.

And while there has been turmoil in recent years, Viola, who placed fourth on this year’s Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisers, says the end result is good.

“Turning the profession around has probably been like turning a shipping container around,” he says.

“It takes time. A little while ago, they brought out the new education standards, the new minimum requirements and (so on) and while some of those things were probably a little bit annoying, and certainly challenging for people like me who had been in the job for 20 years or whatever, in truth, it’s actually a really good thing,” he says.

“It’s brought a different type of person to the industry. Advisers who are coming in now are more educated and they see it as a genuine profession.

“It was always going take time to change; you’re always going to have a little bit of attrition … and backfilling just takes time, takes time to replace the experience.

“You are just seeing a better quality of adviser actually coming through so I only see positivity (and) with the way that systems are now, the way processes are, you can certainly have advisers advising more clients than they did previously.

“So, if you’ve got the ability to look after 15 or 20 per cent more clients, we can deal with 15 or 20 per cent fewer people in the industry.”

Charlie Viola says the need for advisers to go through everything even if a client wants advice on one issue is like getting married before the first date. Picture: John Feder

Viola says the cost of advice is a separate issue from the supply of advisers.

“The reality is and, look, I’m guilty of this as well, I only want to see people with, you know, $5m or $10m,” he says.

“Which means we’re not for everybody. The answer to that (cost) is to ensure that we’re sensible about the regulation around advice and sensible about the separation of advice.”

He says the need for advisers to “go through everything” even if a client wants advice on one or two issues is like “getting married before you have your first date”.

“Allow advisers to do what every other profession does, and just deal with those one or two things and charge for the time associated with those issues,” he says.

Viola says there’s a place for super funds to offer advice.

“As long as the money is well invested, well diversified and in line with people’s risk tolerances, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with super funds providing that level of advice, especially if people like me don’t feel we can service people with less than a couple of million dollars,” Viola says.

“There has to be a place where those people can get the guard rails to make sure that monies are well invested and in line with their needs.”

Of the other trend, to use artificial intelligence to help clients, Viola says: “I think what will happen more and more over time is that there will be services for high net-worth people, people with more money and then there’ll be a large bank people in the middle serviced by robo advice, AI, straight-through processing, and I think that’s OK on the basis that those systems are well considered and are smart enough to (assess) people’s risk tolerances and needs and objectives.”

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This article appears in The Deal/Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisers 2023 magazine, online and in The Australian on Thursday.