TORONTO — Scotiabank (TSX:BNS) has signed a deal to buy the WaterStreet Group Inc., a Toronto-area financial advisory firm focused on the wealthy.
Financial terms of the deal, announced by Scotiabank on Monday, were not immediately available, but the bank said they were not financially material.
“WaterStreet will be the anchor for the expansion of an ultra high net worth service offering within Scotiabank, providing us with the ability to immediately service this growing segment of the Canadian market,” said Barbara Mason, Scotiabank’s executive vice-president of wealth management in Canada.
Under the deal, the WaterStreet brand will be maintained and its clients will have access to Scotiabank’s resources including estate and trust services, philanthropic advisory services and private banking.
“At WaterStreet, we have always emphasized the importance of providing our clients with unbiased advice in a multi-disciplinary manner, at a sophisticated level,” Tim Cestnick. a well-known author of tax books and president of the Burlington, Ont. firm, said in a release.
Scotiabank has close to 70,000 employees and a presence in 50 countries. It is the biggest bank in the Caribbean and has growing operations in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
It already has Latin American operations in a dozen countries including Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela, with nearly 1,900 branches and more than 32,000 employees in the region.
The Toronto bank recently announced it will acquire Royal Bank of Scotland’s corporate and commercial banking operations in Chile. Meanwhile its Scotia Capital unit will buy a Brazilian subsidiary of Commerzbank AG.