Barrett’s AZ NGA takes stake in Eureka Whittaker McNaught
Paul Barrett's Italian-backed enterprise, AZ Next Generation Advisory has today announced a significant step in its dealer group build — the acquisition of a 51 per cent in Sydney-based planning group and former Financial Wisdom practice of the year, Eureka Whittaker McNaught.
The transaction, which includes a share swap of 49 per cent of EWM equity for AZ NGA Shares and a progressive buy back of those shares over the next 10 years, will also see EWM principal, Greg Cook appointed to the NGA board, while fellow EWM principal, Andrew Jones will become the first adviser representative on the NGA research committee.
NGA is backed by the Italian asset manager, Azimut Group, and NGA was established in November last year when Azimut acquired Barrett's Next Generation Advisory Group.
Barrett announced at the time that AZ NGA had been established with the purpose of consolidating financial planning businesses who provide wealth management services to local retail, high net worth and institutional clients.
Commenting on the transaction today, EWM chief executive, Greg Cook, said it heralded a new era of growth for the firm.
"Together with AZ NGA we are going to grow our business for the benefit of our clients and the career path of our team members," he said.
At the same time as announcing the EWM transaction, the AZ NGA statement said it had "shortlisted" a number of high quality financial planning firms and was currently performing its due diligence on its next partnership which will be announced soon.
Azimut Holding chairman and chief executive, Pietro Giuliani, said that in November last yaer the company had announced its intention to build a greenfield project in the Australian asset management industry by consolidating and growing financial planning businesses over the long term.
"We are very satisfied to start this new venture with EWM, a very successful business with a talented and respected management team," he said.
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