Manulife to double Cdn advisor force with merger

FWR Staff

3 July 2007

Insurer to purchase brokerage and mutual-fund businesses of Berkshire-TWC. Manulife Financial plans to buy the mutual-fund distribution and securities dealerships of Burlington, Ontario-based Berkshire-TWC Financial Group. The financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the merger stands to double the number of Manulife's Canadian private-client advisors."

"This increased distribution capacity will add a significant amount of high-quality business to our Canadian operations," says Manulife Canada 's CEO Paul Rooney.

Once completed, the deal also has the potential to triple Manulife's Canadian wealth-management assets under management.

Sure they do

The idea is to fold Berkshire-TWC Berkshire Securities' -- which has 700 or so dealers in more than 200 branches -- into Manulife's Canadian brokerage business Manulife Securities International, which will then have about 1,500 independent brokers and around $18 billion in client assets.

Canada's population is about a tenth that of the U.S. "This sale reflects the continuation of our overall strategy to keep building momentum for our independent advisors and their clients," says Bob Levis, CEO of Berkshire-TWC. "We are committed to ensuring our clients continue to receive high-quality service and are very pleased that Manulife Financial is the purchaser of our business, since they share our passion for service and providing advisors and clients with a broad array of products and services."

News of the agreement between Manulife and Berkshire-TWC comes shortly after Manulife Financial CEO Dominic D'Alessandro told investors that becoming a bigger player in Canadian mutual-fund distribution was a priority for the Toronto-based insurance giant.

"It's annoying to me frankly that we haven't found a way to be more significant" in the Canadian mutual fund market, D'Alessandro told investors at a shareholder conference last month. -FWR