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David Goodman, the president and CEO of Dundee Corp.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

After months of secrecy, now we know.

Dundee Corp.'s retail wealth division, Dundee Goodman Private Wealth, was sold to Echelon Wealth Partners Inc. for $13.5-million. Neither party previously revealed the value of the deal, which closed in April. Dundee pursued the sale following steep declines in assets under administration (AUA) in the unit.

In a regulatory filing, Dundee Corp. said it received $9.3-million for Dundee Goodman and stands to get up to an additional $4.2-million. This contingency amount will be paid to Dundee based on whether Echelon retains the roughly $3.5-billion in AUA that it inherited. (Dundee did not specify the exact terms of this contingency payment in its filing.) A Dundee spokesperson declined to elaborate on the details of the contingency payments.

Dundee Goodman was sold for approximately 0.4 per cent of AUA, which doesn't appear like a rich valuation. Wealth managers of this type tend to be sold for about 1 per cent of AUA. Still, Dundee still managed to generate a $2.6-million gain on the transaction.

Dundee had only held the retail asset for a relatively short time. The bulk of the assets date from early 2014, when Dundee Goodman bought 60 investment advisers from Richardson GMP. By unloading the asset, the Toronto-based holding company also freed up tens of millions in capital that it is deploying in other parts of its business.

The deal to buy Dundee Goodman was a game changer for Echelon Wealth Partners. Before the deal, its AUA was a mere $700-million. It has now roughly $4-billion. Miles Nadal, former chief executive officer of advertising holding company MDC Partners Inc., recently invested $27-million in Echelon, taking a 60-per-cent stake in the firm, which would give it a valuation of $45-million. In an interview with The Globe and Mail earlier this week, Echelon's CEO David Cusson revealed the firm started talks with Mr. Nadal prior to the announcement of its deal with Dundee.

Separately, Dundee Corp. is on track to spin out Dundee Securities, its capital markets business, in a management buyout by the end of the year, CEO David Goodman said on a conference call Wednesday. The financial terms are being hashed out with the new employee equity owners. Dundee Corp., which currently owns all of the equity in Dundee Securities, may not retain any shares in the business once the transaction is complete.

"It's not entirely finalized, but the current thinking is that Dundee would be exiting the business and the employees would be buying it," Mr. Goodman said. "We might provide some capital by way of loans," he added.

Dundee Securities posted a loss of $1.3-million in the quarter ended June 30. Dundee reported revenue of $8.4-million, a 46-per-cent decline, compared with the same quarter last year. Most of the hit came from a steep drop in investment banking revenue, which is composed of new issue and advisory fees.

Mr. Goodman is optimistic the new iteration of Dundee Securities will be a success, even if the company itself might not be an equity holder much longer.

"To be successful as an independent capital markets group in Canada, and effectively compete with the banks in this country, the ownership of the firm needs to be in the hands of the key people who are driving that business," he said.

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