When dundee Wealth Management Inc. announced a $23-million deal to purchase KL Nova Financial Ltd. in late November, it was doing more than making a simple acquisition. The agreement would uproot long-time Dundee chief Don Charter to make way for Kym Anthony, a KL co-founder and the contender who, it is hoped, will transform Dundee into the pre-eminent dealer in Canada.

Now, with Anthony at the helm, the firm is gearing up to strengthen its capital markets division and usher in a new lineup of products and services for its 1,950-odd Mutual Fund Dealers Association– and Investment Dealers Association of Canada-licensed advisors in a bid to keep up with the banks. And with Dundee Wealth Bank’s Schedule I charter in place — it received its order to commence business from the Superintendent of Financial Institutions this past July — all systems are go to create the distribution network for which the firm has been striving.

“We have all the pieces in place, we have a terrific platform and now we just need to add the products,” says Anthony, who in November was appointed CEO of IDA-member firm Dundee Securities Corp. , MFDA-member firm Dundee Private Investors Inc. , MGA Dundee Insurance Agency Ltd. and mortgage broker Dundee Mortgage Services Inc. Anthony has also moved into the position of executive chairman of Dundee Wealth Bank, replacing Dundee Corp. CEO Ned Goodman, who has stepped aside to take a non-executive role in the firm’s associated companies.

After less than two months in the position, Anthony is setting his sights on the retail platform. “My job, and my biggest challenge, quite frankly, is to service our advisors because they’re my biggest group of customers,” Anthony says. “As a firm, we have to look after our retail platform.”

That means starting from the bottom up: making sure advisors have the robust systems in place to support their businesses; ensuring the management team is up to par; and making ongoing conversions to the back office. Although he recognizes the industry trend that has seen MFDA advisors migrating to the IDA platform, Anthony maintains that Dundee will embrace both types of advisors.

“From my perspective, we are 100% supportive of both streams. I think you’ll find that some advisors choose to migrate to the IDA platform, and there are others whose books of business and client base lend themselves to remaining in the MFDA environment,” he says. “We want to make it as easy as possible for people to make the appropriate decisions for their own businesses.”

Next up is integrating KL products into the systems and procedures in place at Dundee. KL’s mix of retail structured products and market-linked notes was a major draw for Dundee. When the firm announced Anthony’s appointment, it also pointed to reports from Toronto-based industry research firm, Investor Economics Inc. , which forecasts growth rates for such products to be “well in excess” of the overall financial service industry.

Still, Goodman says, Dundee is in no rush to introduce new products before their time. “Our strength has always meant being innovative and being leaders, but also being prudent in how we run our company,” he says. “The creation of new investment solutions cannot happen all at once, and we will add them as market demand merits.”

As for KL Nova’s fit with Dundee, Goodman says: “Like Dundee Wealth Bank, which we are growing organically, KL Nova was a piece we didn’t have.”

Absorbing KL Nova was almost a natural next step for the firm that has made a habit of growth through acquisitions, starting with the 1998 purchase of Deacon Capital Corp., subsequently renamed Dundee Securities. In 1999, Dundee acquired the assets of Infinity Funds Management Inc. and started up its insurance operations, Dundee Insurance Agency, in the same year. Three years later, the company got its mortgage and GIC operations underway with the purchase of Ross Dixon Financial Services Ltd. and Hewmac Investment Services Inc. and, later the same year, added more than $2 billion in assets under management with the acquisition of Strategic Nova Inc. In December 2003, it scooped up an additional 2,900 advisors with the purchase of Cartier Partners Group Ltd.

The development of Dundee Wealth Bank was the latest strategic move to ramp up the firm’s product offering through its advisor network. “Having an increased lineup of retail banking products was clearly the desire in pursuing the banking licence and it’s something I want to see realized,” Anthony says. “I think you’ll also see more capital markets-type products as we grow our capital markets business. There will be more new issue business over time.”

@page_break@Whereas Dundee’s acquisition of KL Nova was strategic, for Anthony, the move to Dundee was all about timing. The 50-year-old industry veteran spent the past six years as president and CEO of National Bank Financial Ltd. before deciding to call it quits at the end of June 2005. “It was time to take a break,” he says. “I was splitting my time between Montreal and Toronto, and I wanted to take the summer off to spend time with my wife and kids.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t much of a break. Anthony immediately teamed up with NBF alumnus Lawrence Haber to form KL Nova, which developed structured products and alternative asset management, an area Anthony knew well from his past experience at CIBC. “Our goal was to focus on the higher margin of product structuring and development,” he says. Anthony says he had no intention of selling KL, but when Goodman approached him at the end of the summer with an offer to buy, he was sold.

“To be honest, I wouldn’t have come back as a major firm’s CEO unless it was with Dundee,” says Anthony. “This company has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six or seven years, and its platform represents a tremendous opportunity. For me, this happens once in a lifetime.”

Anthony’s 25-year career in the industry began at CIBC Wood Gundy in 1980. He rose through the ranks of its investment banking unit and built up its Asian operations in Tokyo before returning to Toronto to run the fixed-income operations and, later, to build its risk-management systems. He left in 1993 to join TD Securities Inc., at which he saw revenue grow to more than $1 billion from $130 million in a five-year period. Anthony moved on to become president of Toronto-based investment dealer First Marathon Securities Inc. in 1998, which was subsequently absorbed by NBF.

But it is perhaps his experience as chairman of the IDA in 2003-2004 that will serve him best in his new role. The year was packed with what he calls “broad, strategic policy issues” — the fair-dealing model initiative, the wise person’s report and the ongoing debate surrounding a national securities regulator, among them — that prepared him for the reality of capital markets in Canada.

Joining Anthony at Dundee are Haber, who will hold the position of executive vice president, and Tarek Himmo, who will head up the firm’s credit-related businesses. It’s a team that fits with the firm’s mandate, Goodman says. “These are experienced executives who are thoroughly versed in the new growth areas of asset management, alternative investments and asset-backed bank-guaranteed investments,” he says. “Their business plan and their strengths bring a new growth thrust to our asset management business.”

Anthony is equally optimistic. “We always have uneven markets, and nobody knows whether or not interest rates are going up. But overall, we’ve had a great run as an industry,” he says. “Being here is a tremendous opportunity.” IE