Blackmont thrives under CI ownership

Those higher scores, say advi-sors, can be directly attributed to the ownership of CI Financial Income Fund, which bought out Blackmont’s former parent, Rockwater Capital Corp., in May 2007.

And perhaps the most important benefit of CI buying Blackmont is the much greater sense of stability it gives Blackmont’s advisors. “The stability of our firm is a story we couldn’t have told in the past,” says Blackmont CEO Bruce Kagan. “With CI now our parent company, and with the substantial resources it is able to offer us, there is no question of our stability.”

Black-mont’s advisors seem to agree: their combined stability score increased by a whopping 1.9 points to 9.3 in 2008 from 7.4 in 2007. And almost every Blackmont advisor surveyed pointed to CI’s backing as the reason they gave their firm higher marks.

As one Blackmont advisor in Quebec, who gave the firm’s stability a perfect score of 10 in both performance and importance, says: “It has everything to do with CI being our parent.”

A colleague on the East Coast echoes that sentiment: “CI is a strong company. It is safer than the bank and it doesn’t have the same stupid loans. They recognize us as an asset and want to make Blackmont better.”

Another advantage of the CI acquisition: Blackmont advisors have been able to capitalize on the support of the insurance arm of Blackmont’s sister firm, Assante Wealth Management Ltd. That was reflected in the 8.1 score advisors gave the “support for insurance planning” category, up from 5.5 in 2007.

“It was brutal prior to CI and Assante,” says a Blackmont advi-sor in Ontario. “They have cleaned it up.”

Adds Kagan: “This is an area in which we have bulked up as a result of CI having bought the business.”

Thanks to CI’s backing, Black-mont has targeted a number of previously underserved areas. Support for wills and estate planning (rated a 6.9), for example, which will become increasingly vital as the Canadian population ages, got a major boost.

“We offer full estate and insurance planning services throughout the country,” Kagan says, “for all of our insurance-licensed advisors.”

Although the firm’s estate-planning specialists are located in major centres, they are accessible to all Blackmont advisors.

Another area in which Blackmont has made major headway is in products and support for high net-worth clients. Although only two firms finished below Blackmont in 2007, a 1.1-point increase in 2008 to 8.0 in 2008 has Blackmont in the top 10 in the category this year.

Blackmont has an integrated managed account program for HNW clients: for $100,000, a client can have a separately managed account directed by an individual money manager, which gives the client direct access to the manager through his or her broker. The firm actively pursues new money managers and also takes suggestions from brokers.

A Blackmont advisor in Ontario, who scored the HNW support category a 9.0 in both performance and importance, says that Blackmont’s focus in this area drew him to the firm. “From a product point of view, it is why I moved here,” he says. “It is the best on the Street. The firm is very good about facilitating new managers in the program. You have direct access to the managers, to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

Moreover, he feels that clients can rest easy because of the safety net Blackmont has in place for their HNW products: “Our third-party due diligence with Northern Trust Corp. of our money managers is amazing. It gives clients confidence that there are processes in place that they can trust.”

Kagan makes no secret of the fact Blackmont is actively recruiting both new and experienced advisors: “We focus on both; you can target both youth and experience at the same time.”

But a major challenge in attracting advisors from other firms is that, for the most part, advisors are weary of transferring their books of business. But, for anyone considering switching, Blackmont advi-sors rated the firm’s transition support (at 8.9) 1.2 points higher in 2008 than in 2007.

@page_break@In fact, Blackmont advisors had high praise for the firm’s transition support program. “Anything that needed to get done, got done,” says an advisor in Ontario who joined the firm a year ago. “The local and head office pitched in. It was a mind-opening experience.”

Another Blackmont advisor, who made the transition a year and a half ago, was also impressed: “The support was fantastic, I was given the executives’ cellphone numbers. And if something needed to be done, it was.”

Concerning Blackmont’s strategic focus, the firm’s advisors apparently like what they see but have different ideas of what exactly that focus is.

“We offer boutique-level service,” says a Blackmont advisor in Ontario.

“Blackmont wants to be the leading independent broker,” adds a colleague in Alberta.

And a Blackmont advisor in Ontario certainly feels the firm is on the right track: “Management has a vision. CI will clean up a lot of the crap. Bruce Kagan will lead us; the old guard is gone.”

The firm’s 8.3 rating for strategic focus was a huge step up from the 2007 Report Card, when it finished last with a 7.2 rating. But despite that increase in score, Blackmont still has 10 firms ahead of it in this category, indicating there is still room for improvement.

Certainly, a Blackmont advisor in the West, who gave a performance rating of 6.0 and an importance rating of 8.0, feels work still needs to be done: “What the agenda is, I don’t know. It’s not clear. It is Toronto-focused. If I was there, I’d have a whole new idea of what this firm was about. The focus is not conveyed to everyone.”

Kagan admits these comments are indicative of an East/West divide that he has been actively addressing: “That was a problem in the past. But I don’t see it as being nearly as much of a problem today. I spent the right amount of time in the West. Previous management did not spend enough time in the West and did not spend enough time understanding their business and supporting it, whereas this team has.” IE