When Melbourne stockbroker David Evans walked out of Goldman Sachs JBWere in June 2007 to set up his own broking business, he sold his fellow defectors a vision to recreate a trusted wealth management firm in the style of its predecessors.

“I felt for some time that the market misses what JBWere once was,” he said. “JBWere was a high-integrity, high-trust independent stockbroking business for Australians.”