Listed financial services firm Tolhurst Group (Tolhurst) is in the process of transforming its advisory business into an investment bank.
Tolhurst chairman David Browne said the group is close to having all the blocks in place to make the structural change.
"The reality is that I have a desire to turn this place into an investment bank with broking attached to it. Rather than a broking firm that totally relied upon transactional activity," Browne said.
"We had a desire to turn this into an investment bank to it two and a half years ago, and I believe we're in large part done in terms of putting the blocks in place. We now have to make it work."
News of Tolhurst's proposed restructure comes in the same week it entered into an equity agreement with a Macquarie Bank subsidiary, and finalised its acquisition of financial planning group Community & Corporate Financial Services (Comcorp).
Browne said talks with the Macquarie group began a few months ago, and involves an equity stake of 19.9 per cent.
He said the agreement would enable Tolhurst to explore opportunities to utilise the Macquarie platform, products, desktop financial planning, margin lending and cash management trust facilities.
Macquarie's equity stake would have no effect on its Comcorp transaction, Browne added.
"Comcorp was completed a couple of days ago and shares will be issued to Comcorp and therefore the19.9 per cent Macquarie are buying is in full knowledge of that expanded capital," he said.
"One of the things that is going to happen is Comcorp will take on the wealth management activities of the expanded group into financial, which we bought a little bit earlier which was the Investment Bank group in Brisbane and Sydney, are going to be largely involved in our M&A [mergers and acquistions] type activities. The equity capital markets activities, which historically has been Tolhurst will remain Tolhurst."
Tolhurst is an integrated financial services company. The company was formed in December 2001 from the merger of two long-established firms: D&D Tolhurst and William Noall Group.
