Currently the National Adviser Group is owned by the foundation shareholders however a new company the NP Equity Group has been set up with two classes of shareholders.

Under this arrangement up to one million shares will be issued to advisers who write business for TNP.

Advisers will be given shares based on the amount of business they write each year in qualifying companies.

The qualifying companies are generally ones which pay an over-ride commission to TNP. The over-rides are essentially additional commission paid to dealer groups.

Not all life companies pay over-ride commissions while some are paying commission rates around 25%. These have come down recently from levels as high as 45%.

The share scheme is not a capital raising exercise. Adviser won't pay for shares.

Rather it is a way of giving advisers a stake in the business and it is envisaged there will be an annual dividend paid.

No dividend has been paid yet, however TNP is calculating what it will be for the previous financial years.

Jeff Page says it won't be anything big at first.

Page says the share offer is a way of differentiating TNP from other dealer groups and removes the focus on commissions.

 "Most advisers what to own their own slice of equity."

He admits there is "a little bit of a lock in" to stop advises moving to other groups.

Page says as part of the process there will be some changes to the composition of the board of the various companies which make up TNP.

Currently Page and fellow founder Jamie Coltman are the main shareholders and directors. There will be an adviser representative on the board of NP Equity.

The National Adviser Group reported a profit after tax ot $238,142 for the nine months to December 31 on total revenue of $3.94 million. Its accounts show that it paid $1.45 million to advisers in this period and spent $539,450 on marketing.

TNP is primarily an insurance distribution business with 451 members but it has plans to ramp up its home loans business at the moment. It also has a small wealth management operation. Currently there are around 50 advisers in TNP Home Loans and 30 in TNP Wealth