Something's up with the Canadian-based company; it's just hard to tell what. Loring Ward, a Canadian-domiciled, mostly U.S.-run wealth-management company, may be getting set to jettison some of its core business units.

Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Loring Ward, an unlisted public company with principal operating subsidiaries in New York, Los Angeles and San Jose, Calif., says in a 6 February press release that it "has received an unsolicited, nonbinding expression of interest to acquire" Loring Ward Advisor Services, its investment platform for registered investment advisors (RIAs), and Loring Ward Capital Management, its private-client asset-management unit.

Other opportunities

Loring Ward says it is mulling such a deal "in connection with a review of strategic alternatives including alliances, joint ventures, additional equity investments, acquisitions, and divestitures." But it stresses that "there can be no assurance any transaction will result."

In the same release, however, Loring Ward says it has combined the business units in question to form a new division called Loring Ward Asset Management & Advisory Services - AMAS for short.

"The investment and wealth-management industry continues to offer significant potential for [us], and the formation of [AMAS] will strengthen our focus on this growing and attractive market segment," says Donald Herrema, Loring Ward's New York-based chairman and CEO. "Bringing these businesses together focuses our resources and improves efficiency."

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Loring Ward Advisor Services is an investment-distribution platform used by about 500 RIAs.

Loring Ward Capital Management has three portfolio-management programs: "Loring Ward Private Client," "Synervest Portfolio Services" and "Synervest Asset Management" (SAM). Private Client is a separate-account offering with a $1-million investment minimum, primarily distributed by Loring Ward's family-office unit. Synervest is a separate-account program with many similarities to the Private Client offering though it's mainly distributed by Loring Ward Advisor Services. SAM is a turnkey mutual-fund program, also distributed by Loring Ward Advisor Services. SAM portfolios have a $100,000 minimum, and the program is closed to new advisors.

AMAS will be led by New York-based Robert Herrmann, now president of Loring Ward Capital Management. San Jose-based Al Steele, president of Loring Ward Advisor Services, is leaving the company "to pursue other opportunities."

Batter up

In addition to considering the sale of its newly combined asset-management and advisor-service unit, Loring Ward says it is in talks "with certain senior managers of its business management units, who have expressed interest in acquiring their respective business-management practices."

Unless that's another reference to a possible sale of AMAS - perhaps to a different set of buyers than those who made the "unsolicited, nonbinding expression of interest" mentioned earlier - it's hard to guess what else might be on the block.

Last year Loring Ward sold its four sports-management subsidiaries: Fegan & Associates, a Los Angeles-based manager of National Basketball Association players; M.D. Gillis & Associates, a Kingston, Ontario-based firm that represents nhl.com/ National Hockey League players; Roanoke, Ind.-based Maximum Sports Management, a firm that represents nfl.com/ National Football League players, and Moorad Sports Management, a Newport Beach, Calif.-based manager of professional baseball and football players. Moorad now operates as Legacy Sports Group. Loring Ward still derives revenue from Maximum and Legacy contracts signed before the firms broke away.

By the end of 2005 Loring Ward had also sold its Canadian wealth-management business to Harrow Partners, a Winnipeg-based company organized by Marty Weinberg, Herrema's predecessor as Loring Ward's chairman and CEO, and the architect of Loring Ward's transition to a U.S.-run wealth management company. Weinberg led Loring Ward's spin-off from Assante Corporation, a Winnipeg-based wealth-management company, in November 2003.

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With its sports-management businesses gone, and if it were also to exit its advisor-service and asset-management businesses, Loring Ward would be a pure-play multi-family office with no proprietary investment products.

But if that's what Loring Ward has in mind, it isn't ready to say so. Given several opportunities to weigh in on recent developments, the company has declined to comment.

Loring Ward's family-office business is based in Los Angeles and New York. -FWR

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