Management buying Independent Financial.

A management buyout is Under way at Independent Financial Marketing Group, an investment products marketer in White Plains, N.Y.

Four top executives, who already own 75% of the company, are purchasing a 25% stake from Coverdell & Co., an Atlanta financial services firm with ties to the family of Sen. Paul Coverdell, R.-Ga.

Independent Financial's management group expects to complete its purchase by summer, said Rod Halvorson, one of the group's members. "We're just working out a price," he said.

The buyout will leave Independent Financial "with a single group of owners devoted exclusively to the bank market," and will help set the stage for expansion, Mr. Halvorson said.

Former Chairman Bought Out

The negotiations with Coverdell follow the management group's purchase earlier this year of a 7.5% stake held by former chairman Leigh Wilson.

Independent Financial's management team is led by Denis Kaplan, who assumed the title of chairman with Mr. Wilson's departure. Mr. Kaplan had been president, a spot now held by Mr. Halvorson, who had been a managing director.

The company's chief operating officer, Dennis Rushovich and executive vice president Rosemary Hendrickson round out the management group.

With $642 million of mutual Funds and annuities sold through banks last year, Independent Financial ranks among the industry's leading marketers of investment products through banks.

The firm's clients include Meridian Bank in Reading, Pa., and Key Bank of New York, a Keycorp unit in Albany.

The company also has endorsements from the Florida League of Financial Institutions and the New York Community Bankers Association.

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