Macquarie looks to region in its quest for further growth

Alan Corr, head of Macquarie's banking and financial services group in Europe and Asia, said they could spend their war chest in Yorkshire after buying Canadian stockbroker Orion and, last year, taking a minority stake in Bristol advisor Paradigm Norton.

The Sydney-based bank, which has 14,400 staff in 28 countries, also wants to expand Veracity Asset Transformation Service, its new Leeds-based imprint which provides services for independent financial advisors (IFAs) and opened in October.

Mr Corr told the Yorkshire Post that Macquarie, which last week reported a 21 per cent rise in full year profits to A$1.05bn (630m), could take advantage of opportunities created by the economic downturn.

"We have got significant cash reserves we have been using over the last 18 months to make good acquisitions. We bought a significant fund manager in the US and a stockbroking business in Canada and we are always on the lookout for good investment opportunities and if things happen in Leeds that are interesting we would look at Leeds."

Veracity was set up to work with IFAs as regulatory changes, designed to make the system more transparent, mean they earn money from fees rather than commission.

The culmination of the Retail Distribution Review, due by 2012, will also increase similarities between the the British and Australian marketplaces.

John Baxter, who runs Veracity, said that several factors – an ageing population, increasing pressure on the welfare sector, the shift from final salary pension schemes to personal pensions and uncertainties in the future over tax and legislation – created a bigger market for their work.

"The need for professional quality financial advice in the UK has never been greater.

"We established Veracity to help financial advisors deal with the challenges they will face in the next few years.

"If you look at the advice sector on the back of the economic downturn most do not have the resources to handle that transformation successfully. That is where we come in."

Mr Baxter said their business works by sending staff to train IFA businesses in preparation for the regulatory changes rather than simply issuing them with a list of instructions. Its clients are typically small to medium-sized financial advisors, turning over between 250,000 and 10m.

Veracity currently has nine staff in Leeds, and it wants to more than double in size by the end of the year. It is working with seven firms, including in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and expects to see this treble over the same period.

It plans to take on graduate staff in September, should they meet the required standard, and to grow the business "significantly" over the long term, Mr Baxter said.

"I am aware of the high quality and integrity of the financial services community. It was an obvious place for us to base Veracity because of the quality of (financial advisory) firms in this area."

Mr Baxter also praised Yorkshire Forward, which organised an event for Macquarie staff to meet the IFA community, and Financial Leeds, for the help they provided to bring Veracity to Leeds.

Macquarie's wrap business – an administrative service used by financial advisors to manage clients' investments – is based in Bristol.