Sealcorp Holdings has announced that it has sold off theWealthpointname and fully reabsorbedAssirt Researchbringing the ownership of the latter full circle after it was seperated and spun off two years ago.
Sealcorp chief executive Ian Knox announced this morning that the sale of the Wealthpoint name to Midstreet, was concluded in the middle of last week but says Midstreet did not buy any of the rights to Assirt research or software once held under the Wealthpoint name. As such, Knox says theSt Georgegroup and the Wealthpoint name will no longer be linked in any manner.
The business lines held under Wealthpoint have undergone a name change with Wealthpoint Financial Software now known as Assirt Planning Software, while Assirt Research has maintained its name.
However, Knox has committed them both to remaining independent of any institutional interference either from Sealcorp or parent group St George while at the same time stating both businesses will look to expanding their offerings to the market.
To this end the Assirt Planning Software will be offered on a wider basis to planners while Assirt will focus further on those fund managers and products that are in demand by planners and investors according to Knox as well as those which are rising in popularity.
Knox did admit the integration of Wealthpoint’s businesses back into Sealcorp has resulted in job losses but defended the losses by stating they were not as high as reported and were mainly of staff who were engaged on a contract basis.
“When Wealthpoint was spun out it was caught in the tech boom and when it come back to St George the costs of operating it in the future were not good.”
“At the same time under the Sealcorp range of holdings we found there was a level of duplication of work and technology between the Wealthpoint software and AdviserNet and so we merged the two groups which meant about 40 people lost their jobs. Most of these were programmers and most of them were contractors,” Knox says.
Assirt was originally owned by Sealcorp but was made separate from that company when it was bundled with a number of other businesses including Bourse Data and Hot Copper under the Wealthpoint name in September 2000.
At that time the group was no longer fully owned by Sealcorp’s owner St George who held a minority stake in the business as well as options to purchase more of the Wealthpoint business in the future.
St George decided to exercise these options 11 months later and brought Wealthpoint back under its full ownership alongside Sealcorp.
