iA Wealth is merging its iA Securities and HollisWealth platforms under the new brand name of iA Private Wealth, the Toronto-based firm announced Monday.
The merger creates an IIROC dealer with over $40 billion in assets under administration and a national network of more than 500 investment advisor and portfolio manager teams.
The new iA Private Wealth name “better represents where we’re going,” said Sean O’Brien, executive vice-president of iA Wealth, in an interview. “We’re much more of a planning shop [today], helping Canadian [clients] look to the future.”
iA Wealth is the wealth management division of Quebec City–based insurer iA Financial Group, which acquired HollisWealth from Bank of Nova Scotia in 2017. iA Securities is the firm’s legacy IIROC dealer.
iA Wealth has been integrating the two platforms over the last three years, O’Brien said, building them out organically and through recruiting.
However, “the two brands together weren’t seen as one group,” O’Brien said. “Pulling [them] together under one name recognizes the strength of the platform we’ve built and will be an important part of us trying to attract the right advisor.”
Indeed, iA Wealth intends to step up its recruiting efforts this year for “entrepreneurial-minded” advisors who are “still looking for the stability of a good, strong company behind them,” O’Brien said. “We’re seeing quite a nice surge of interest on the independent side.”
In addition to iA Private Wealth, iA Wealth has two MFDA platforms, Investia Financial Services Inc. and FundEX Investments Inc., and an asset management firm, iA Clarington Investments Inc., which offers mutual funds, managed portfolio solutions, ETFs and SRI products.
Also announced on Monday, iA Wealth’s capital markets division, which had operated under the iA Securities brand, will now be known as iA Capital Markets.