EVIC sees more acquisitions in store - provided the targets fit with its culture. Last week private-client asset manager Eaton Vance Investment Counsel (EVIC) bought Phoenix-based Weston Asset Management. Though that was the first acquisition by the former Boston office of Deutsche Bank's Scudder Private Investment Counsel since it became a part of Eaton Vance in mid 2004, EVIC CEO Westy Saltonstall says there could be more buys in the offing as the firm moves to position itself as a leading direct-to-client investment counselor.

"We're not afraid to expand in certain markets," says Saltonstall. EVIC's growth strategy seems in keeping with its parent's ambition to become "a leader in providing high-net-worth individuals and families with customized, service-intensive asset management," as Eaton Vance chairman James Hawkes put it in 1 August press release. Institutional asset manager Eaton Vance is also a leading provider of retail separately managed accounts.

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But Saltonstall emphasizes that EVIC is more interested in cultural affinity with its acquisition targets than with purely geographic expansion. "You could say Phoenix is a good market for us," he says. "But we're not making a conscious effort to expand geographically."

Saltonstall says that Weston's founder and principal Jay Schlott "lives in Arizona because he likes the climate," but that he runs "a national book of business" - with many of his clients on EVIC's Boston-area stomping ground. Saltonstall also points out that Schlott used to work for Gardner & Preston Moss, the investment consulting division of Invesco until Eaton Vance bought it in 1993. That makes Schlott the fifth Gardner & Preston Moss alumnus on EVIC's roster of 15 investment counselors.

Schlott, who is on vacation this week, wasn't available for comment.

"We're looking for [acquisition] opportunities based on compatibility [in terms of] personality, type of client and management style," says Saltonstall.

Still, says Franklin Kettle, managing director of Colchester Partners, a Boston-based investment bank, it also makes sound sense for Eaton Vance "to have a high-net-worth office in Phoenix."

Kettle likens the move to other out-of-market acquisitions in the wealth management space. Those include Suntrust Banks' 2003 purchase - through Asset Manager Advisors, its Palm Beach, Fla.-based multi-family office - of Greenwich, Conn.-based Eagle Capital International, Wilmington, Del.-based Wilmington Trust's purchase last year of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Grant Tani Barash & Altman, and Wachovia's acquisition, also in 2004, of Boston-based Tanager Financial Services - a move that pushed Calibre, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's Philadelphia-based multi-family office, beyond Wachovia's retail footprint for the first time. -FWR

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