The Bank of Nova Scotia is bringing its asset-management operations together under a single umbrella as it attempts to lay the foundation for organic growth in its wealth-management business.

A new unit called Scotia Asset Management LP will bring together the asset-management operations of ScotiaFunds, ScotiaMcLeod and Scotia Cassels, combining the research, communications, product development and other operations that are currently spread across the separate units, Scotiabank announced on Wednesday.

Although ScotiaMcLeod will continue to operate as a distinct brokerage firm, management of its Pinnacle and Summit proprietary programs will be transferred to Scotia Asset Management.

The Scotia Cassels brand will no longer exist, as the team led by John Varao will become part of Scotia Asset Management. Varao will become chief investment officer at Scotia Asset Management.

“Our goal in making this change is to bring together employees performing similar functions to increase our scale and effectiveness and ensure that we are fully leveraging our skills and expertise,” said Barb Mason, Scotiabank’s executive vice president of wealth management.

The client-facing advisor and distribution functions will not be directly impacted by the realignment, the bank stated.

“The advisors themselves will still have the same suite of products,” said Glen Gowland, president and CEO of Scotia Asset Management. He added in an interview on Wednesday that the combined asset-management unit would ultimately benefit advisors

“What we’re really doing is taking the investments we’ve made in the wealth-management area, putting them together to be able to leverage them across multiple distribution channels,” said Gowland. “That will create a more robust product innovation capability and sales support for the advisors, so that will be a real benefit.”

Product development is a key area of focus for Scotiabank’s wealth-management unit, Gowland added. He noted that the Scotia INNOVA Portfolios, launched by ScotiaFunds in January, have been very successful so far.

“[We’ve] made pretty significant investments from a wealth management perspective into new product innovation,” he said. “What we want to do is continue to broaden that and look across the organization for opportunities in terms of bringing some of that innovation expertise to bear in some of our other channels too.”

The alignment will also lay the foundation for growth in Scotiabank’s wealth-management business, Gowland said: “We think as we progress, it’s going to create a very good organic growth platform for us to be able to leverage.”

The change is subject to regulatory approvals, but is anticipated to be effective Nov. 1, the bank said.