IPC Wealth will have 2,500 advisors working in 1,300 offices across Canada with $141-billion in assets under administration.Afry Harvy/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Canada Life is amalgamating mutual fund dealers IPC Investment Corp. and Quadrus Investment Services Ltd. into one platform called IPC Wealth Inc., with plans to merge that new platform with its investment securities business by late next year.
Blaine Shewchuk, executive vice-president of wealth and advice for Canada Life, says the merger is part of a three-phase integration.
“We’re going to get our feet beneath us [...] with this amalgamation, but that’s our plan,” he says.
In July, the company completed the first phase of that integration by combining Canada Life Securities Ltd. and IPC Securities Corp. under the IPC Securities name.
As a result of the fund dealers’ merger, IPC Wealth will have 2,500 advisors in 1,300 offices across Canada with $141-billion in assets under administration (as of Aug. 31). The new firm is headquartered in Mississauga.
IPC Securities, which has 216 advisors, is also taking the trade name IPC Wealth, but remains a separate entity from the amalgamated mutual fund dealers.
Both the merged securities firm and merged dealer are headed by James McKay, president and CEO of IPC Wealth.
Amalgamating the mutual fund dealerships gives the company scale to invest and to attract and keep advisors, Mr. Shewchuk says.
“I’m really excited [about the mutual fund dealers’ merger] because we can land the plane on the integration and the common brand,” he says. “We have the conviction now to grow, retain [advisors] and be confident about our value proposition, which is high payout and customizable support.”
Mr. Shewchuk says it was always Canada Life’s strategy to combine the wealth businesses it acquired when it bought IPC from IGM Financial Inc., a sister firm under the Power Corp. of Canada group of companies.
“It was about the wealth capabilities that IPC offered – the mutual fund platform, the securities platform, the discretionary portfolio management platform that came with it and the wealth-focused advisor [as well],” he says. “The intent of bringing it over was to integrate it into one dealer.”
Integrating the businesses in stages before combining them next year was the most efficient way to build out new technology, Mr. Shewchuk says. The company is rolling out workflow integration technology, including a new advisor desktop, portal and app.
Canada Life chose the IPC name for the merged entity because of its brand recognition built over three decades.
“IPC was a company built by advisors for advisors,” he says. “It’s really important for us to maintain that entrepreneurial spirit and culture that came with IPC.”