Merchant Capital Group Inc. is moving its mutual fund and investment banking operations to a newly created financial services subsidiary, Merchant Capital Securities Corp. The new unit gathers together fund manager @rgentum Management and Research Corp., a mutual fund dealer to be named Merchant Capital Wealth Management Corp., and the existing investment banking operations of Merchant.

Francois Leblanc will be president, and Jay Richardson chairman, of the new subsidiary. Leblanc and Richardson are both managing directors of Merchant Capital Group.

Merchant acquired @rgentum from Blue Heron Financial Corp. and transfer of ownership remains subject to regulatory approval. Blue Heron shareholders approved the transfer back in March.

The fund dealer organization will be formed from the combination of the dealer network acquired in the Blue Heron transaction and a newly acquired dealer organization, Practitioners Mutual Planning Inc. Once the Practitioners deal receives regulatory approval, Merchant Capital Wealth Management will have about $50 million in funds under administration.

“We are very pleased with how rapidly we have been able to bring together the acquisition of Practitioners,” said Richardson in a news release. “Practitioners is a fully registered Mutual Fund Dealers Association member and will speed the process of building the infrastructure to enable us to assemble a significant dealer organization”.

Scott Sinclair, president and CEO of Merchant Capital Group, said “We were very pleased with the resolution of the Blue Heron position and, with the addition of Practitioners, we have now completed the first phase of building Merchant Capital’s platform in financial services.”

The firm’s headquarters will be at Merchant’s new corporate office at 220 Bay Street in Toronto. It will also share space at @rgentum’s head office in Montreal.