On Nov. 22, Scotiabank announced that it has agreed to make an offer for all of the common shares of DundeeWealth that the bank does not already own. The bank currently owns 18% of DundeeWealth.

“The acquisition of DundeeWealth demonstrates our strong commitment to build our wealth management presence in Canada and aligns to our global wealth management strategy,” said Rick Waugh, Scotiabank President and CEO.

He added that “DundeeWealth is the best selling and top performing independent wealth management group in the Canadian marketplace…We also believe that Dynamic Funds, with their outstanding performance and breadth of products have excellent potential as we expand our global platform.”

The value of the offer to DundeeWealth shareholders is $21.00 per common share representing an enterprise value for DundeeWealth of approximately $3.2 billion. The transaction has an approximate cost of $2.3 billion to Scotiabank for the portion not currently owned.

DundeeWealth has entered into a support agreement with Scotiabank, confirming that it will support the offer subject to standard securities law conditions.  The non-interested board members of DundeeWealth have unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the offer.