IG announces name change

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This article was published 04/10/2018 (2584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The name Investors Group will likely never be erased from the history of Winnipeg business institutions, but as the organization and its business has changed with the times, so should its name.

And so, this week the company has announced it is rebranding itself to IG Wealth Management.

Jeff Carney, CEO of the company and its parent, IGM Financial Inc., knows such a change will be a big job, but is doing it as a way to show the market that the 92-year-old Winnipeg-based financial services company, sometimes seen as maybe being a little too devoted to its traditions, is capable of evolving.

The inclusion of the word “wealth” in its new name is an attempt to reflect the central focus of helping clients grow their wealth, but it’s also likely a way to signal to the market that IG Wealth Management will be a little more interested in growing its market share among high-net-worth Canadians than had traditionally been the case with the old Investors Group.

“We are under-penetrated relative to some of our competitors when it come to the high-net-worth market,” Carney said in an interview.

The financial consulting business gets broken down into three segments: mass market (up to $100,000 in assets), mass affluent ($100,000 to $1 million) and high net worth (more than $1 million).

“We want all three channels to continue to grow,” he said. “We have a significant share in first two segments and we want to significantly grow our share in the high net-worth space.”

That’s already been happening. In 2017, its total assets under management grew by 9.8 per cent to $157 billion, while gross sales of high net-worth solutions grew by 83 per cent compared to 2016.

Investors Group has long held bragging rights as the largest mutual-fund company in the country. Its small army of financial consultants — who number more than 4,000 — visit Canadians in their home with a diverse range of in-house investment products, a broad enough selection to meet the needs of most Canadians.

Including the name change, the company has officially announced that all its consultants will be required to earn their chartered financial planner (CFP) designation. Carney said all IG consultants have that certification currently or are enrolled in courses to achieve it.

“It is really a focus on utilizing our skills,” Carney said. “We are unique in the industry in that we have more CFPs than anyone else in the country. It gives you the skills to unleash the full potential of the client because you’re educated on all the possibilities that are available to them.”

With the rebranding, the company is also letting everyone know that after going out in the field with some independent surveys, it has changed consultant compensation, eliminated deferred sales-charge commissions and is in the process of implementing greater fee transparency by offering unbundled fee-based products over the next 24 months.

The parent company, IGM Financial Inc., is majority owned by Power Financial Corp., as is Great-West Lifeco Inc. It also owns Mackenzie Financial Corp. and has a stake in a handful of growing fintech enterprises and, along with Power Financial, has a 28 per cent stake in a growing financial planning enterprise in China.

Although its share price is currently languishing near its 52-week low, it has continued to grow in most metrics and had record-high gross sales during 2017 and a record-high assets under management total, which was up eight per cent last year.

Assets under management have continued to grow with investment-fund assets under management at $89.8 billion as of August 31, 2018, an increase of 5.3 per cent from the year before.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca