Now off to Euro-Pacific, long journey for group of bought and sold brokers continues

A number of investment advisers who’re set to maneuver to a different employer may be developing a record of having been bought and sold the most number of occasions.

The advisers in question are moving to Euro-Pacific Canada as a result of the sale of Dundee Goodman Private Wealth by Dundee Securities.

In all, 78 investment advisers – and about 150 staff total – is going to be impacted by the move, which still requires approval from the industry regulator. If the adviser group moves en masse then Euro’s assets under management will rise from $700 million to $4.2 billion.

The deal terms were not disclosed. Dundee did say the transaction “is likely to result in approximately $40 million of additional liquidity and ongoing cost savings to Dundee, that will support strategic priorities.” Those priorities include its alternative asset management and private investment counsel business.

For Euro-Pacific C which apparently initiated the discussions a few months back – the transaction is part of its plan to end up being the country’s leading independent brokerage firm, excluding Canaccord, Richardson GMP and Raymond James.

“We were looking for platforms that we thought were culturally aligned (and) may help us build scale,” said David Cusson, Euro’s leader when referring to the 2nd deal it’s produced in a few months.

“We approached them last year and asked ‘if which was something it would consider,'” said Cusson, who noted Euro-Pacific was thinking about not just Dundee’s sales but also the associated infrastructure, meaning its compliance, accounting and support staff.

Adding the sales staff and then trying to “back fill” the support teams, Cusson said “is really a triumph of hope over experience.”

Related

Dundee Securities sells retail brokerage with 78 advisers and $3.5 billion in assets to Euro-Pacific

For a few of the Dundee advisers, Euro-Pacific represents another step in a journey that started in late 2002. In those days, publicly listed Rockwater Capital Corp. paid $23 million to get the private client business of Yorkton Securities. About 200 retail advisers were impacted by the sale, which allowed Yorkton to become an institutionally-focused capital markets firm referred to as Orion Securities. Three years later within the fall of 2005, Rockwater became Blackmont.

In the wintertime of 2007, CI Financial entered the image if this acquired Rockwater for about $251 million. At that time, Rockwater was home to 180 advisers with $9.4 billion of assets under administration. CI was attracted because, to compete with banks, it felt the necessity to maintain exactly the same line of business. Rockwater also had a strong institutional management of your capital operation.

Less than 3 years later Australia’s Macquarie Group arrived and agreed to buy Blackmont from CI for $93 million. At the time Blackmont was right down to 130 financial advisers who had $7.6 billion of assets. The new firm became Macquarie Private Wealth.

For some brokers, your way wasn’t over: in September 2013, Richardson GMP acquired Macquarie for $132 million. At the time, Macquarie employed 185 adviser teams who had $12.9 billion of assets under administration.

That move, for many of the brokers acquired by Richardson GMP was not final. A couple of months later Richardson GMP and Dundee reached a deal whereby 60 advisers and related staff transferred to Dundee. At the time, Richardson GMP said the advisers affected were not a great match its business model, which was centered on an organised method of serving affluent families and entrepreneurs.

And now some of those brokers are on the move again.

Financial Post

bcritchley@nationalpost.com