Did you hear? A consortium of mining veterans is making a R6,7 billion bid to bring Formula One back to South Africa, with a purpose-built circuit in the Swartland north of Cape Town and no call on taxpayer funding.
This week in Seed Analytics Advisor Connect:
Upcoming events: Chances to network & earn CPD points.
Join a group or stay independent: What you give up, what you get.
Platinum for everyone: The reason service tiers could disappear.
New opportunities & advisory jobs for you to explore in SA.
Your 2026/27 FSCA levy & a Supreme Court win on raising fees.
Prompt of the week: Work out what your practice costs to run.
Take Note
FPI Professionals' Convention – Cape Town, 7–8 Oct: The FPI's flagship annual event returns to Century City. Worth 11,5 verifiable CPD hours (3 ethics, 6,5 general, 2 technical). Details here.
FPSB Psychology in Practice – Online, anytime: An on-demand FPI course pairing a video series with an e-book on the behavioural side of advice. (4 CPD points on completion). Details here.
Join a group or stay independent: what you give up and what you gain
The three things worth knowing before you answer…
Every year, there are several mergers in SA’s financial space, and some big players have made it clear that they intend to grow their advisory force by acquiring smaller firms. Momentum’s CEO said outright last week that the SA market needs some consolidation, and independents do have rising compliance costs and, of course, succession planning to contend with.
You may already have had emails asking whether you’d consider selling your book, franchising it, or entering into some kind of affiliation. But what would actually happen if you said yes?
Here are three trade-offs worth considering before you decide.…
1. Your margin for their overheads
When joining a bigger group, you’d normally give up a share of revenue, ongoing or for as long as the arrangement lasts. You’d get compliance, technology and back-office support from them and not have to pay for those separately anymore.
These deals will usually express the share they ask for as a percentage, and it helps to convert that into an actual rand value so you can understand what you are really giving up.
Take action: Add up what you spend a year on compliance, software and admin support, then set that against the actual rand value of the share they are asking for.
2. Your independence for their distribution
You may have less say over the products you offer, how your processes work and the way you advise clients. And in return you’d gain access to their scale, referral networks and, often, an established brand that could open doors your own name could not.
What matters is understanding exactly where that line is drawn., "Independence" can cover everything from which funds you may recommend to what appears in your email signature. Some of those things may not matter, while others may be exactly why you chose to go independent in the first place.
Take action: Before looking at the numbers, ask them to spell out in writing which decisions stay with you and which would move to them.
3. Your payout for their terms
If it's an outright sale, you'd rarely receive the full amount upfront. Most deals pay a portion on day one, with the balance paid over the next two or three years, often linked to clients staying and revenue being maintained.
So in practice, you would usually stay on for a while, helping to run the business as its ongoing revenue helps fund the rest of the purchase price.
Take action: Ask what percentage is paid upfront, what the remaining payments depend on, and what happens if you become ill or want to leave early. Get those answers in writing.
There is no single right answer for every practice. What matters is going into the conversation with all three data points clear, so you can judge the offer against your own numbers rather than simply deciding whether it sounds attractive.
Join the conversation…
Have you ever seriously considered joining a bigger group?
Could you give every client Platinum service?
Most firms still operate with some form of tiered service model, whether it is formally defined or not. Platinum clients might get more review meetings and personal calls, while lower-tier clients receive an annual check-in and more standardised communication.
That model made sense when reporting had to be compiled manually. Today, Seed can help you produce consolidated, advisor-branded statements across your entire client book at once, which means high-quality reporting no longer needs to be reserved for only your top clients.
Already on Seed?
Give your lower-tier clients the same quality of statement your top-tier clients receive, then use it to start a broader conversation. Some of those clients may hold assets elsewhere that you are not yet aware of, and a consolidated statement gives you a natural reason to ask. That could uncover new opportunities to grow the relationship.
New to Seed?
Featured Section
New wealth and fin advisory career opportunities in SA
Financial and Wealth Advisor (Cape Town) @ Hereford Group
Financial Planner (Umhlanga) @ Lonfin Wealth BlueStar
Financial Adviser (Port Elizabeth) @ Envestpro Gravitas
Financial Advisor (Durban) @ May-San Financial Services
Financial Advisor (Centurion) @ IWCP
Broker Consultant (Johannesburg) @ Kaelo
In Case You Missed It…
Industry Roundup
Do You Control Your Notetaker’s Data? AI note-takers have become common practice, but what happens with the information they record? POPIA still governs everything that happens to the information afterwards, including security, retention and whether the recording leaves South Africa, so brush up on which tools your people use.
Your FSCA Levy for 2026/27. Treasury has gazetted the final amounts: Category I and IV FSPs pay a base of R4 111,39 plus R593,87 for each key individual and representative, while Category II, IIA and III pay a R8 565,39 base plus the same per-head amount and a further 0,0021236% of assets under management.
SARS Loses on Raising Fees. The Supreme Court of Appeal has found by a four-to-one majority that raising fees count as finance charges similar to interest, so they are deductible under section 24J even where they are capital in nature, overturning the view SARS set out in its own interpretation note late last year.
Coronation Crosses 5% of MTN. Coronation Asset Management notified MTN on 17 September that its beneficial interest, held for underlying clients, had reached 5% of the group's issued ordinary share capital, disclosed on SENS under section 122 of the Companies Act. Coronation managed R778 billion at the end of June.
Copper Is Becoming the Bottleneck in the AI Trade. A single hyperscale data centre complex consumes about 50 000 tonnes of copper, and with the metal up from roughly $10 000 a tonne a year ago to $14 529, 13D Research reckons hardware bottlenecks will start constraining the AI build-out within two years.
Prompt of the week
If you want to know what your practice actually costs to run…
Most owners can quote their revenue, yet very few can quote their cost base with the same confidence. This prompt builds a blank annual cost worksheet for a practice like yours, including the line items owners routinely forget. It asks for no figures at all.
How to use it:
Paste the prompt into your AI tool of choice.
Answer its three setup questions in general terms, with no rand amounts and no client details.
Fill in your own numbers offline, from your own accounts.
Important: Do not upload your revenue, AUM, client data or management accounts into an AI tool. This prompt builds a blank worksheet only; every figure stays in your own systems.
The Prompt:
You are helping the owner of a South African financial advisory business work out what it actually costs to run each year. Do not ask for, and I will not give, any real revenue, client or personal figures. Work only from the general descriptions I provide.
First, ask me three short questions, one at a time: (1) roughly how many advisors and support staff I have; (2) which functions we handle in-house and which we pay for externally, such as compliance, paraplanning, software or bookkeeping; (3) whether we own or rent our premises. Wait for my answers.
Then produce, in South African English:
1. A blank annual cost worksheet grouped under compliance, technology, people, premises and professional services, listing every line item a practice of my size typically carries, including the ones owners routinely forget.
2. For each group, one sentence on what usually pushes that cost up or down.
3. A short breakdown of which costs are fixed, which scale with the number of advisors, and which scale with the number of clients.
4. The three questions I should be able to answer once the worksheet is filled in.
Do not estimate rand amounts or industry benchmarks. Where a figure would help, tell me where in my own accounts to find it.
Did you know? On 23 Sept 2008, Google collaborated on the first Android device. It was the T-Mobile G1 (aka the HTC Dream), and it had a slide-out keyboard and no headphone jack, made by a manufacturer most people had never heard of. Fast-forward to today, and the operating system now runs on roughly seven in ten smartphones on Earth.
Till next time,
PS: Happy Heritage Day for tomorrow!
Seed Analytics Advisor Connect
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