KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Spiring, left, with Rafter, who moved over from BMO Nesbitt Burns.

After focusing on expansion across Western Canada for the last two-and-a-half years, Wellington West Capital has set its compass to the east.

The Winnipeg-based brokerage house has opened its first office east of Deacon's Corner with the poaching of a pair of brokers from TD Waterhouse's Halifax office.

David Bluteau and Michael Devenney, along with a support staff of eight, bring over a book of investments of about $160 million and 170 clients.

Charlie Spiring, Wellington West CEO, said he hopes the Halifax office will be a springboard to another two to six openings in the Atlantic provinces this year.

"Our business plan has taken a radical change now to work outside the West and take on the Eastern Canadian market. Charlottetown and Fredericton are probably our next two moves. Those are the two places to be," he said in an interview yesterday.

He said no matter where the firm sets up shop, the name will retain the "West" in its name. But Spiring's poaching wasn't done there. Late yesterday, Laurie Rafter, a senior vice-president and broker at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Winnipeg, resigned her post to cross the street and join Wellington West.

She has a $100-million book and broke the news to many of her clients at a seminar last night at the Cabato Centre on Wilkes Avenue. She's a 20-year industry veteran and an eight-time winner of Nesbitt's Chairman's Council award, symbolic of the company's top brokers across the country.

"She's the only woman in the country to be at that level," Spiring said.

"This is one of the biggest moves in the past five or 10 years in Manitoba. I can't think of a consistent million-dollar producer who's switched firms here."

Rafter, who was hired in the early 1980s by Spiring at Midland Doherty, the precursor to Midland Walwyn and Merrill Lynch Canada, said in an interview she thinks the move is in the best interest of her clients. "The banks have come down with a lot of fees lately. The fees at the banks are always large. There's nothing the matter with Nesbitt Burns, it's just not the place I want to be any more," she said.

Rafter is the latest in a growing line of high-profile women to join Wellington West. In the past 18 months, Cheryl Dougan and Terri Lemke in Saskatoon and Nancy Shewfelt in White Rock, B.C. -- all past Investment Dealers Association distinction award winners with more than $400 million in combined books -- have defected from bank-owned firms. Rafter, who will join Wellington West's executive committee, will be charged with training and educating the brokerage's staff on selling fee-based products.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca