Adviser-owned firm offered for sale

Medium-sized, adviser-owned planning firm Goldridge has offered itself for sale over the holiday period.

Monday, December 23rd 2013, 6:00AM

Goldridge has 16 advisers and is estimated to have around $240 million in funds under management. It is predominately a wealth management business but has some life insurance too.

All but one of the 16 advisers are based in the North Island (Hamilton, Te Awamutu, Tauranga, Matamata, Napier, Palmerston North and Wellington). The sole South Island adviser, and company chairman, is Bill Dahlberg in Nelson.

Goldridge is owned by its advisers and was established in 2000 as a joint venture between advisers and Tower. In 2003 the financial advisers, management and external directors bought out Tower’s interest, making Goldridge “totally non-aligned to any fund manager or bank.”

Goldridge had been seeking more advisers to grow its business. However last week it put an information memorandum into the market offering the business for sale.

Good Returns understands expressions of interest and offers are due in mid-January.

Ralph Stewart’s firm Stewart Capital is running the sales process.

Neither Stewart nor Goldridge would comment on the process.

Goldridge general manager Leahna Hardie said in a statement: “Goldridge are considering working with other advisory groups and institutions to further develop the services we can provide to our clients.”

Goldridge describes its investment management facility as being “based on well-researched, diverse and comprehensive strategies covering a wide range of assets.”

The company describes, on its website, its investment process like this: “When selecting investments we use two internationally recognised external research tools that specialise in evaluating investments. Our own in-house research team use this information and formulate their view which is then debated by our investment panel. We call this our Internal Integrated Investment Management Process, or I3MP for short.”

However it doesn’t name its external research tools.

It is understood much of the funds under management sit in older-style legacy funds.

The Goldridge board includes two former adviser members, Bernie Long and Igor Gerritsen as well as Dahlberg and Peter Hawes.

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