Investment Planning Counsel (IPC) has struck a deal to acquire Partners In Planning Financial Group (PIP), pending regulatory approval.

The deal includes all of PIP’s subsidiaries, including mutual fund and exempt market dealer Partners In Planning Financial Services Ltd. and its insurance agency, Partners In Planning Insurance Services Inc.

“We had always been interested [in PIP] because we had very similar cultures,” says Chris Reynolds, president of IPC. “We both have similar views on independence and the theme of IPC is ‘built by advisors, for advisors’ and Partners In Planning certainly shared that in terms of independence.”

The PIP acquisition will add approximately 300 advisors to the IPC platform, bringing the firm to nearly 1,000 advisors, with about 300 offices spread across all provinces.

“Being an Ontario-based company, we’ve seemed to grow in Ontario, and prior to the Partners In Planning transaction, 60% of our assets were in Ontario,” Reynolds says. “This really helps us to expand to become a national company.”

Depending on the mood of the market, Reynolds says the firm will have about $16 billion in assets under administration.

“For the most part, it will be business as usual,” says Reynolds. “There won’t be very many changes for PIP advisors, other than giving us an opportunity to bring a lot of the value-added things we’ve developed here at IPC to another 300 advisors.”

Those value-added items include the IPC training program, succession planning and business development services.

“That’s what makes this great; it’s a fairly easy transaction to integrate,” he says. “We both operate very similarly. We share the same philosophy, the branch management structure; ownership of book is very important to our advisors, as it is to their advisors.”

IPC also announced the acquisition of Titan Funds Inc., which offers investment solutions through PIP Financial Services Ltd. Titan will eventually be merged with Counsel Portfolio Services.

PIP and Titan are both part of the Walton Group of Companies.

The PIP transaction is expected to close during the last quarter of 2010. Financial details are not being released, as Walton is a privately held company and the amount is deemed immaterial to IGM Financial, which owns IPC.

“We have now made a strategic decision to focus our efforts on Walton’s rapidly growing core land-based real estate investing and development business,” said Bill Doherty, CEO of Walton Global Investments Ltd.

Information circulars providing details with respect to the transaction will be mailed to shareholders of Titan Funds and unitholders of Titan Managed Portfolios in advance of special meetings to consider the transaction, currently expected to be held in October 2010.

The deal would be finalized shortly thereafter.

(09/10/10)