Asteron buys Stone & Associates
Asteron has bought Stone and Associates assets for a confidential sum and plans to operate it as its own distribution business in 2005.
Thursday, January 20th 2005, 6:31AM
The new company will offer competitors’ products such as Tower’s health policies.
A company spokesman conceded Stone owed Asteron “a reasonable sum” of money, but he refused to confirm or deny that it was high as $1 million as has been widely speculated in the market place.
The acquisition is of the assets the spokesman said, not of the company itself and any other debt it might owe.
Records at the Companies Office show Stone and Associates (incorporated in 2000) is in receivership, with Todd David Jones as the sole director.
The registered office is said to be shifting to PricewaterhouseCoopers from January 5. A call to the accountants’ office, Mcdonald Reid Ltd in Newmarket, listed as the current registered office revealed the telephone line has been disconnected.
Meanwhile the name Stone and Associates (2004) has been reserved. The company’s website, which described the company as personal financial advisors with offices in Auckland, Lower Hut (sic) and Christchurch, while the telephone book lists it as insurance brokers, carries no information about the receivership.
That there was trouble brewing has been long speculated in the industry when some of Stone’s advisors left to go to Future Plan earlier this year.
The remaining staff members have been offered positions in the new company by Asteron.
The spokesman said the Stone model would allow Asteron to introduce new people into the business and succession planning. He said Asteron would be looking to put training systems in place.
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