"We would want advisers to look at these brands and say 'I want to join this business'.
"If they are looking to retire, we will help them over a period of time to transfer those clients to someone in this business, and we will buy them out, we will match them to an adviser."
Montgomery joined M&G Wealth at a strange time, barely a month before lockdown in 2020, and was faced with the challenge of adapting to a new company culture virtually, while also being the new boss of his division.
He says: "We all had to learn how to do our job again. You have to spend 20 odd years learning how to stand in a conference room to speak to hundreds of people, how do you get to those hundreds of people virtually?"
As well as this, he also conducted negotiations online, buying Sandringham in August last year, and Ascentric in September 2020.
In some ways, the process was more efficient. "You're not sitting in a room sweating out the small stuff and keeping going; when you're doing something virtually you tend to cut to the chase. In some respects that's a good thing, you're not wasting as much time, but you do lose a bit of the social aspect of it.
"The way we do it in a physical setting is you would mix social and business."
He is fairly sanguine for the advice industry over the coming months as the economy gets tighter. "In volatile markets and times of uncertainty, people are generally looking for help and support – the market for advice is going to grow. If you're in volatile times then the quality of advice is appreciated.
"The problem is that there's an advice gap. As an industry, we're all trying to solve it."
Ultimately, he has certainly learnt from other areas he has worked in and brought with him fresh insights. Montgomery spent 10 years in the energy sector before joining financial services through Aegon.
"There's the same challenges and issues in all sectors; you have the same challenges and the same customers trying to achieve the same things."
Melanie Tringham is features editor of FTAdviser
