Trio come together for some bridge building

High profile financial planner Garry Avis has joined up with well-known superannuation consultant Robert MC Brown and Darryl Pike to set up Bridgeport Advisers & Asset Management, which will include re-tail financial planning within its range of services.

High profile financial planner Garry Avis has joined up with well-known superannuation consultant Robert MC Brown and Darryl Pike to set up Bridgeport Advisers & Asset Management, which will include re-tail financial planning within its range of services.

The organisation will initially employ six financial planners, but joint executive director, Darryl Pike, says that he intends to even-tually expand the group's planning business.

"We'll certainly be looking at buying another financial planning business or linking our planning business with other financial plan-ning firms in the future," he says.

When Bridgeport opens its doors on 1 July, services on offer will run the gamut from planning to superannuation consulting. Pike says the organisation will also provide services in the development of the Ac-countants Superannuation Fund, as well as support to professional groups in the areas of training, compliance, research and marketing.

Brown and Avis will share the title of joint executive director alongside Pike. There will be no managing director for the group.

Bridgeport has been created by the merger of Chancellor Investment Group, Robert M.C. Brown & Partners and Darryl Pike's consultancy business. Zurich Financial Services Australia has a 30 per cent equity stake in the new organisation, its sec-ondf major investment in the distribution side of financial services. It is also the major shareholder in the Lonsdale financial planning group.