InterFinancial Holdings targets Florida retirement advisory and HF manager. InterFinancial Holdings, a two-year-old Dallas-based holding company has agreed to acquire Sarasota, Fla.-based Capital 1st Trust, in a bid to strengthen its offerings as a commercial bank to financial-service firms.

"InterFinancial intends to establish itself as a commercial bank and finance company that targets companies in the financial arena," says InterFinancial managing director Jeffrey Bruteyn. "Capital 1st's existing business and revenues fit our model ideally."

Tremendous boost

Capital 1st says it has a predominantly high-net-worth client base. It has three offices in Florida and several affiliates in the Southwest operated by registered investment advisors and brokers. Its primary gambit is providing financial advisory services to private-pension accounts, retirement accounts and defined -benefit plans. It also manages a hedge fund focused on high-yield insurance products.

The terms of the deal haven't been finalized. InterFinancial figures it will have those things ironed out within a month or two -- after which it promises to publicize the particulars of the deal.

Capital 1st's president Eric Hall views the merger with InterFinancial "as a tremendous boost to our fund and to our existing operations" -- specifically through OTC-traded InterFinancial's access to public capital. -FWR

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