Journey continues for bought-and-sold brokers

Agroup of investment advisers who are set to move to a new employer may be creating 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 — will be affected 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 expected to result in approximately $ 40 million of additional liquidity and ongoing cost savings to Dundee, which will support strategic priorities.” Those priorities include its alternative asset management and private in- vestment counsel business.

For Euro- Pacific — which apparently initiated the discussions a few months back — the transaction is part of its plan to become 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) could help us build scale,” said David Cusson, Euro’s chief executive when referring to the second deal it has made in a few months.

“We approached them last year and asked ‘ if that was something i t would consider,’” said Cusson, who noted Euro- Pacific was interested in 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 a triumph of hope over experience.”

For some of the Dundee advisers, Euro-Pacific represents another step in a journey that started in late 2002. Back then, publicly listed Rockwater Capital Corp. paid $ 23 million to acquire the private client business of Yorkton Securities. About 200 retail advisers were affected by the sale, which allowed Yorkton to become an institutionally- focused capital known as Orion Se- curities. Three years later in the fall of 2005, Rockwater became Blackmont.

In the winter of 2007, CI Financial entered the picture when it acquired Rockwater for about $251 million. At the time, Rockwater was home to 180 advisers with $9.4 billion of assets under administration. CI was attracted because, to compete with the banks, it felt the need to be in the same line of business. Rockwater also had a strong institutional money management operation.

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

For some brokers, the journey was not 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 some of the brokers acquired by Richardson GMP was not final. A few 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 good fit with its business model, which was focused on a disciplined approach to serving affluent families and entrepreneurs.

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