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WHEN BARRY O’MAHONY SETS HISsights on something, it is just a matterof time before he – to use a rugby ana-logy – grabs the ball, cuts a swathe

through the opposition and touches down under theposts. He had the audacity to put in a bid forFinancial Planner of the Year in 2008, when his com-pany was just four years old … “I was one of sevenfinalists, and I think I came seventh,” he laughs.

But it was a useful trial run, and if rugby has taughthim anything (and he says it has taught him every-thing), it is that there is no shame in the bold movethat fails. You do it more effectively next time.

In fact, it was a rugby-inspired bold move thatbrought O’Mahony to South Africa 20 years ago,when he was 23. He played for Ireland A andMunster, before studying at Oxford University for ayear and being included in an Oxbridge rugby tour toSouth Africa in 1993. The team’s coach was AlanSolomons, now director of rugby at Eastern ProvinceKings, but, honestly, he probably didn’t have to domuch to persuade O’Mahony to bring an extra bag

and stay on. Ireland’s Celtic Tiger economy was stillfirmly caged (“to get a job stacking shelves in a super-market, you needed to pull a string”, O’Mahony says)and South Africa was on the brink of making historywith its first democratic election.

After six months as a doorman at La Med in CampsBay – no doubt making up in height what he lackedin bouncer brawn – O’Mahony took his first step onthe financial services ladder by joining AppletonCapital Management as a share portfolio manager. Hehad an Honours degree in economics and diplomasin business administration and social studies, butnothing that prepared him for learning investmentmanagement from the ground up in an environmentwhere names such as Raymond Ackerman and Pick nPay meant nothing to him.

“I was crashing and burning terribly in portfoliomanagement, so eventually they moved me into assetmanagement, where a guy named Shawn Stockigt satbeside me and helped me out.

“I got a great grounding in the companies,the South African economy and how it all

The

Barry O’Mahony’s belief in the power of the individualhas helped him to achieve remarkable things on therugby field, in the cause of social upliftment and now,professionally, as the founder of Veritas WealthManagement and winner of the Financial Planner ofthe Year Award. Roz Wrottesley spoke to him.

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powerofone

Barry O’Mahony (photographed at Newlandsstadium) may not play rugby any more, butthere are always goal posts to strive for, inbusiness and in his community work.

PHOTOGRAPH: STORYBOOK PHOTOGRAPHY

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works. And it became apparent that mystrength was in dealing with people; I really

enjoyed the financial service part of the job,”O’Mahony says.

After a period as marketing director of Brait’s unittrust business, O’Mahony joined ipac (now Acsis) ashead of practice development – the first position of itskind in South Africa.

“It was a fascinating role – I helped financial plan-ners to set up the first fee-based practices in SouthAfrica. Once they were up and running, we wouldhelp them run their businesses. After a few years ofhelping them – and seeing them win FinancialPlanner of the Year – I thought it was time to take arisk myself.

“I had already taken a risk coming to live in SouthAfrica, and I’d seen my dad set up his own business –a short-term insurance business that my twin broth-ers now run. In Ireland, you always bought your ownhouse and then, if you could set up your own busi-ness, you did.”

So, having earned accreditation as a CertifiedFinancial Planner (CFP), O’Mahony started VeritasWealth Management in 2004 with a friend, Pierre duPreez, an office in Constantia that boasted a greatview, a very old computer and no clients. His wife,Lisa, was eight months pregnant with their son,Connor, now aged eight.

“But I knew the business model and was confidentthat I knew how to do financial planning properly. Ihad been lucky enough to see hundreds of differentbusinesses with hundreds of different dynamics, so Iknew the kind of culture I wanted to build. We start-ed as a fee-based business immediately, so what the

BARRY O’MAHONY: The initial consultation is free so thatboth parties have an opportunity to evaluate each other andsee if we could, or should, work together. We then take theclients through a number of meetings and the outcome is awritten financial plan.

Veritas charges a rand-based fee based on time andcomplexity, which we quote on at the first meeting. Veritasthen charges a monthly fee based on the assets undermanagement. This fee operates on a sliding scale and isreflected in monthly statements. Our clients can cancel thisfee at one month’s notice.

We work out how often we need to see each other duringthe year and in this process we are constantly re-evaluatingyour circumstances, including such matters as debtmanagement, risk planning, retirement, discretionary savingslocally and offshore, trusts and wills. We point you in theright direction when it comes to tax, medical and short-terminsurance, through our associates in these fields.

government is asking for now as a business model wewere doing nine years ago.

“It’s very tough. You have to go through thehockey-stick graph of starting low and getting evenlower before things improve. For a while, you have totake R2 000 or R3 000 home as your monthly salary.You need to prepare yourself for this, and a lot ofpeople aren’t brave enough to do that.”

Nine years later, Veritas is a “sizeable company”,O’Mahony says, with more than a billion rand undermanagement, three frontline CFP professionals,including himself, a support staff of six, and offices inNewlands and Paarl. He defines the ideal clients aspeople who are passionate about what they do andstriving to be the best.

“They are serious about financial planning, butthey don’t have the time, the inclination, or theknowledge to get it done,” he says.

Is high net worth a prerequisite, then, for accessingthat boardroom I was sitting in?

“Not at all,” he says briskly. “Two things: I thinkit’s very healthy to have a variety of clients – not toget yourself into this high-net-worth bubble andthink it’s normal. Second, we do have a social obliga-tion; that is the issue we’ve got as an industry. We donot go out of our way specifically to try to get low-net-worth individuals as clients, but we do helpfriends, relations and the staff of clients.

“As professionals, we believe that we must alsoincrease the standard of financial education in thewider community. We make ourselves available togroups at work and at schools and have developedsome very powerful talks.”

Just doing itSOCIAL OBLIGATION IS AN ISSUE O’MAHONY HASbeen aware of since his early days in South Africa.

After observing the profound divisions betweenthe suburbs and the squatter camps of Cape Town fora few years, O’Mahony assembled three friendsaround the table at his digs and set about working outhow to make a difference. The result was JDI (“Just doit”, originally, but abbreviated to “JDI” because theyfound they were in competition with Nike for theslogan), a network of working groups – about 26 cur-rently – giving help and support to projects of theirchoice in impoverished communities. It’s a simplebut effective formula that gives each group controlover its own activities under the supervision andfinancial control of the JDI Foundation Trust, set upin 1997 (www.jdi.org.za).

O’Mahony is still a trustee of the foundation,but has since embarked on two even more ambitiousprojects: setting up a township rugby league and,more recently, a rugby-linked life-skills programmeat schools.

The Vuka Wednesday Rugby League is run in part-nership with SA Rugby and the SA Rugby Legends totry to reverse the trend towards gangsterism and drug

How does Veritas Wealth charge?

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4TH QUARTER 2013 | PERSONAL FINANCE 29

abuse among teenage boys on the Cape Flats by keep-ing school gates open after hours. And it’s working:83 schools are involved in the Western Cape so far,with the finals played in style each season atNewlands. KwaZulu-Natal is on board now, too, with16 schools signed up to the programme, and negotia-tions are under way with former Springbok AshwinWillemse to start a league in Soweto next year.

The life-skills training programme, called CoolPlay, is supported by the Laureus Sport for GoodFoundation and The Learning Trust and coachesyoung rugby players to apply the positive strategiesthey use on the field to everyday life. It is endorsedby SA Rugby, has impressed the International RugbyBoard, and a few of Cape Town’s top rugby-playingschools have signed up to it.

Next, O’Mahony wants to develop an equivalentmotivational programme for teenage girls throughthe school network, based on netball.

“If you really want change, get to the women.“All these projects have similarities. They act as a

catalyst, or an agent of change, in whatever environ-ment we work in. And they all attract people to them:donors, the bodies that run the programmes, theteachers, the kids.

“I genuinely believe that, as an individual, you canmake a difference, so I continue to just go on tryingto prove that to people. That’s my thing. And inSouth Africa it’s so easy to make a difference. You onlyhave to do the small stuff and the ripple effect is enor-mous. People don’t realise how powerful they are asindividuals,” he says.

Listening vs tellingIT IS CLEAR THAT O’MAHONY IS A NATURAL MOTI-vator of people, whether the focus is rugby, life skillsor financial planning. O’Mahony coached first-teamrugby at University of Cape Town for three years andsays he realised he was talking at his players and thatfinancial planners tend to do the same thing.

“So I did a Lifeline course. I didn’t do it to be acounsellor. I told them from the start that I was prob-ably the least worthy person on the course, because Iwas doing it for commercial reasons, but I alsowanted to be able to support people and become thebest financial planner I could be. “

O’Mahony believes that the CFP qualificationprompts financial planners to lean too heavily on thetechnical. “Technical understanding makes a goodfinancial planner, but not a great one. The greatnesscomes when one learns to ask a good question, ratherthan give a good answer.”

He quotes the well-known financial planner andauthor Tim Maurer, who said “personal finance ismore personal than it is finance”.

“It’s not about being a psychologist or trying tochange people or anything like that, but it is aboutgoing after the issues people have with money,”O’Mahony says.

As a result, consultations with new clients arefocused on finding out about them, not fitting theminto a financial template.

“Before we get to a [financial] needs analysis,which is all about numbers, we ask you to fill in aquestionnaire that asks very basic questions aboutyour money experiences. And we do this before thefirst meeting, so we have read it before you arrive.

“We still start the conversation by asking you whyyou have come to us, but the point is to tie togethermoney and meaning. For example, a woman comesto see us who says she wants us to set up a preserva-tion fund for her. It turns out that she has a financialplanner already, but she wants to know if he’s gettingit right. Actually, he is; in terms of returns, he’s gettingit spectacularly right. But we ask her how she feelsabout what he is doing and whether it fits in with hergoals. She admits she hasn’t a clue.

“If we know what you’re trying to achieve in >>

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BARRY O’MAHONY

The 23-year-old Number 8 reaches for the ball in a line-out jumpon the Oxford/Cambridge University rugby tour that brought himto South Africa in 1992.

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your life, we might have to tell you that itcan’t be done, but we’ll tie the money and

your lifestyle together for you, so you’ll understandwhy,” O’Mahony says.

The financial planners at Veritas have all workedindividually with a life/leadership coach, and veryoccasionally they have offered this form of support toclients who might benefit from examining them-selves and their circumstances before making long-term money decisions.

“When we see an issue that needs to be worked outbefore a financial plan can be put in place, we’ll initi-ate the meeting with the coach to start the process.For example, one client needed to put a successionplan in place for his business, but was not surewhether he had chosen the right person. The lifecoach could assist both parties in their discussionsand help them work out whether they would be ableto work together.

“We have seen workaholics coming up for retire-ment without any thought as to what they might doafter retirement. This could be a disaster for them,and we advise a meeting with the life coach beforemaking any rash decisions.”

Lite touchSUCH SUPPORT IS THE REALM OF HIGH-ENDfinancial planning, but O’Mahony believes there is adesperate need to institute what he calls “financialplanning lite”, to help people understand everydayfinancial products.

“Currently, we are doing this by way of group talks,but we need to figure out a way to help more individ-uals. This is a challenge for both the Financial

BARRY O’MAHONY: The main reason is that people don’tdo financial planning for themselves – and that’s becausethey don’t have the time or the inclination. A financial plannercan do the following:

1. Put you under pressure at each meeting to get youraffairs in order.

2. Help to give money meaning – in other words, toarticulate what your lifestyle goals are and then make a planthat will help you to get there.

3. Share the burden of the responsibility of the financialdecisions. People left to their own devices get paralysed anddo little or nothing at all.

4. Create a living financial plan that changes with yourcircumstances, legislation and the markets. Financial plansshould be reviewed at least annually.

Financial planning done well is about doing the right thingfor a long time.

Planning Institute as a professional body and busi-nesses like Veritas. In time, we will probably offer aservice on a limited-time basis, or do it pro bono. Weneed to look at different strategies to help the com-munity as a whole.”

If O’Mahony has his way, the “lite” treatmentwould start and end with compound interest.

“My whole job is compound interest. It’s what Icall the ‘big secret’ of financial planning. Are you onthe right side of it or the wrong side of it? The wrongside is credit card debt and revolving credit.”

O’Mahony is fierce on the subject of credit cards:those that are not paid in full every month, com-panies pressing credit cards on their customers andwhat he considers the ultimate insult: being asked bya retailer whether he wants the credit “budget orstraight”. “It has to be straight!” he says, aghast.

“Nobody should have credit card debt. If that’swhat it takes to get that coat or that television, thefact is that you cannot afford it. That’s the raw truth.I’m the biggest consumer out there, but why wouldyou pay twice the price for something? We have oftentold prospective clients with credit card debt to comeback to us once the debt is settled.”

Twenty years in financial services has clearly notreconciled O’Mahony to the financial illiteracy of theaverage South African. He recalls talking to the staff ofone of his corporate clients.

“One woman was so sharp and on top of her stuff.Then she referred to having a ‘revolving credit’ facili-ty charging 15-percent interest, while also overpayingon her bond, although that interest rate wasonly seven percent. That is so obviously wrong. Thegeneral public do not understand financial products –debt products, in particular. How many people aresaving and have credit card debt at the same time?”

O’Mahony believes that financial educationshould start at home.

“I am trying to encourage my son, Connor, tochoose a toy he wants to save for, and then I pay himinterest every month. Slowly, he is picking up that ifhe does not spend the money immediately, he gets acash injection of interest to help him achieve thegoal. Interestingly, if he does not have a specific goal,he becomes a relentless and impulsive shopper withhis weekly pocket money.

“My wife, Lisa, and I talk about our overall spend-ing and our spending plans. She used to run a cater-ing company, so she is very aware of day-to-day costs,where I tend to look at the bigger picture and how weare doing overall. We work well as a team. These arevery healthy conversations and probably prevent ten-sions developing in our relationship.”

Advice under siege?GIVEN THE DIRE STATE OF SAVING FOR RETIRE-ment in South Africa, O’Mahony is right behind thefar-reaching reforms proposed by National Treasuryto reduce the costs of saving, among other things. He

Why is it important to obtain financialadvice from a professional planner?

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has just one criticism of the approach: that advice isnot part of it.

“Treasury believes that advice is another layer ofcosts and does not add value. In other words, theythink that all advisers sell products, which is not true.That has changed over the past 20 years and there isnow a large body of Certified Financial Planner pro-fessionals who hold postgraduate diplomas in finan-cial planning, follow a disciplined advice process andadhere to a code of ethics. That is the minimum werequire of our advisers at Veritas. Yet most people andmost regulators are still unaware of the work we do.”

O’Mahony says that National Treasury is right topoint out that fees can have a detrimental effect onyour ultimate retirement outcome 30 years from now,but he says failing to save in an efficient manner is noless harmful – and perhaps more so.

“You can do it yourself, and I believe you should beallowed to, but the reality is that very few people dofinancial planning well on their own.”

National Treasury proposes to encourage discre-tionary non-retirement saving by introducing a new,tax-incentivised savings vehicle, and O’Mahonybelieves this is a perfect example of a strategy thatwould be better backed by advice. Currently, the pro-posal is to exclude advisers.

“People might know about this option, but thatdoesn’t mean they will get around to doing anythingabout it. In my experience, in nine years of givingadvice, I have learnt two things: people just aren’torganised enough, so they don’t get these thingsdone; and, subconsciously, they are actually afraid tocommit. Then they’ve made the call and whathappens if it’s the wrong decision? However, theopportunity cost of not doing anything is unbeliev-ably high.

“If people don’t want advice, they can go to Pick nPay and buy their savings product at the till, no prob-lem. And they can perhaps get it a little bit cheaper.But if advice is needed, the public needs to get used topaying for it. In the past, you bought a product andthe advice was the added value. That is turned upsidedown with financial advice: you pay for it, but it’sworth it.”

Barriers to entryANOTHER CONCERN IS THE WAY ADVISERS’ EARN-ings will be structured in future, once the FinancialServices Board completes its review of retail productdistribution in South Africa. A similar review in theUnited Kingdom has resulted in a major shake-up offinancial advisers’ business models, and O’Mahonyhas no doubt that the financial planning industry inSouth Africa will be operating on fees, rather thancommissions, in just a few years.

“Many small financial planning businesses won’tsurvive the transition, and my fear is where all this isgoing. The barriers to entry are already massive. Howwill the advice profession transform itself, given that

98 percent of advisers are white? How is that goingto change? Are we going to have no more small tomedium businesses?

“I don‘t think the authorities have thought thisthrough: how does a young black person start up a‘Veritas’? Do we have to become this vast entity in 10to 15 years, employing dozens of people, becauseno-one can start his or her own business? Small tomedium businesses are critical for the economy.”

Then O’Mahony smiles; ever the conciliator. “Iwould never be a regulator! You can never get it right.I think everything the government is doing is95-percent correct. I just think they have missed whatadvice can add – proper advice.”

n The Financial Planner of the Year Award is jointlysponsored by PERSONAL FINANCE and the Financial

Planning Institute.

PHOTOGRAPH: STORYBOOK PHOTOGRAPHY

Since Veritas Wealth was launched nine years ago, O’Mahony andhis South African wife, Lisa, have had two children: Connor (8)and Neave (5).