Private-banking group to sees multifamily office as phase-one for expansion. Swiss private-banking firm EFG International has acquired Toronto-based Bull Wealth Management in a bid to expand its presence in Canada's private-wealth market.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Bull Wealth's founder James Bull, will stay on as CEO and assume the title and responsibilities of vice-chairman of EFC Canada. He'll work with EFG Canada's chairman and CEO Steve Mackey.

First step

"EFG International has significant strategic aspirations for Canada," says Lawrence Howell, CEO of EFG International. "The purchase of Bull Wealth Management, as well as the combined leadership and experience of Steve Mackey and Jim Bull, means that we are now well positioned in relation to the Canadian wealth management market."

Bull, who founded Bull Wealth in 2000 after a 27-year career with Ernst & Young, sees the tie-in with EFG as a way to bring more robust private- and business banking services to his clients "while maintaining the objective and disciplined client service focus that is the hallmark of the Bull Wealth Management brand."

Mackey says that Bull Wealth has proved the value of its business model -- a combination of investment consulting and family-office services -- and demonstrated "a profound understanding of the market and their clients."

And Mackey emphasizes that the acquisition of Bull Wealth is just a "first step towards our ambitions in Canada." EFG in fact plans to establish offices in major Canadian markets to extend its reach beyond Toronto and its environs in southern Ontario over the next few years.

Zurich-based EFG International, which operates in 44 locations in 30 countries, is an acquisitive firm. Earlier this year EFG purchased Miami-based hedge-fund manager PRS Group in a bid to acquire client accounts with "substantially" larger average balances than its existing U.S. clients.

Late in 2005, it bought London-based Chiltern Group's wealth-management arm. In a more complicated deal completed in mid 2005, it purchased two of its sister companies -- London-based EFG Private Bank and a Monaco-based investment advisory -- from another affiliate of Geneva-based EFG Group, its own corporate parent. Still in 2005, EFG International bought Dresdner Lateinamerika Financial Advisors, Dresdner Bank's Caribbean and Latin American brokerage business, and folded it into its Miami-based broker-dealer EFG Capital International.

Bull Wealth advises on $1.2 billion. -FWR

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