AXA Wealth cuts 30 jobs from sales team

AXA Wealth is cutting 30 jobs from its sales division in a move it said was prompted by the restructure of the business.

AXA Wealth employees were informed of the life company’s decision to cut 10 sales team members and 20 sales support staff members from its 250-strong sales division this week.

Marketing director Tom Wilkinson is also set to leave the company, which said it was examining a new role for head of specialist support Gary Thomson.  AXA Wealth said these changes did not relate to the cuts.

An AXA Wealth spokesman said the cuts had been prompted by the restructure of the business following the sale of part of its life business to Resolution, the retail distribution review (RDR), and the growth of the Elevate platform. 

‘Those three things have resulted in the requirement for fewer jobs going forward,' he said. ‘As the business develops, a small number of frontline sales roles will be lost (we expect this to be a circa 10 net reduction) with a further 20 sales support roles, as we focus on the opportunities of the post-RDR world. We will actively look at reducing the number of redundant roles as far as we can through non replacement of leavers, redeployment and reskilling wherever possible.  This still leaves AXA Wealth with one of the largest sales teams in the market.’

AXA Wealth will also create five new roles for tax wrapper specialists in its sales team to support advisers operating off-platform.

The company underwent a restructure in January 2012 which put 50 jobs of its then 300-strong sales team at risk and halved its regional managers from nine to five.