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Ameriprise to acquire Columbia management from Bank of America
Bank of America Corp. has decided to sell the long-term asset management business of one of its units to Ameriprise Financial Inc., Minneapolis, for which the company will pay between $900 million and $1.2 billion in cash. This Columbia Management’s long-term asset management division has $165 billion in equity and fixed-income assets under management. The deal is expected to close in the spring of 2010.
When, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America was hit by the recession and mounting loan losses, analysts had predicted Bank of America could shed Columbia Management as part of its capital-raising efforts. However, the bank managed to raise the necessary money through other asset sales, stock offers and debt conversions.
Ameriprise said the acquisition will boost its earnings within one year, excluding integration costs. The financial also added that the acquisition will generate between $130 million and $150 million in annual cost savings, with about half of the savings being realized in the first year after the purchase is completed.
Combined with its current operations, Ameriprise will manage about $400 billion in assets after this deal which is expected to close in the spring of 2010.
Subscribe to the comments for this postIndustrial asset management for profit maximization
Companies use industrial asset management for profit maximization. It deals with making the best possible use of resources by measuring assets, analyzing data, current market trends and quickly taking business decisions based on information collected.
In industrial asset management, first the current resources are identified and then policies that preserve them are framed. For this, software known as enterprise asset management systems is used. It was first developed in the 1960?s with improvements being done constantly so it may encompass all the stages of the asset life cycle from planning, designing, purchasing, installing, operating, maintaining and finally disposing.
Keeping a record of assets ensures that money is not wasted on new equipment and supplies when there it is still available in the company’s inventory. It also brings into notice non-productive assets which can be put to productive uses. Again, if there is something lacking, the companies get an opportunity to acquire it. Thus the companies can check if it can be added to their portfolio so the company is able to grow.
However, just installing a software program to monitor industrial asset management is not the sole solution to asset management needs. Each and every level of management needs to be involved throughout the whole process because every company has different needs and these have to be addressed accordingly.
Brookfield Asset Management seeking acquisitions
Toronto-based Brookfield Asset management has a global portfolio worth more than $80 billion of which $8 billion is invested in Latin America (in Chile, Peru and Brazil) in areas ranging from ports to toll roads to water treatment plants. Earlier this month, the company had launched a $400 million Colombia fund to invest in infrastructure. Now it plans to expand further as it intends substantial acquisitions in the asset classes and geographies where it is most experienced.
As told by Brookfield’s senior managing partner and chief financial officer, Brian Lawson, at the annual event of CIBC World Markets Eastern Institutional Investor Conference in Montreal, the expansion could come on the company’s property side, commercial or residential, or in power generation.
“Geographically we’ll be looking again within our areas of current operations, so it would be North America, Australia, Brazil, United Kingdom, Europe, those would be the areas we’d be particularly focused on,” Lawson said at event.
Lawson referred to Brazil as a as a “great story” and said the company would continue to invest in power assets there, as well as in retail and residential businesses. He also showed interest in Chile.
SunGard’s Asset Arena Compliance solution to help manage DekaBank’s data
DekaBank is the German Savings Bank Finance Group’s central service provider in everything to do with asset management. The bank has three business divisions – Asset Management Capital Markets, Asset Management Property and Corporates & Markets. SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and IT services companies which serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. Asset Arena is SunGard’s global suite of products and services for asset managers, institutional investors, and traditional and alternative fund administrators which supports the core functions of the asset management industry including investment management, investment operations and investor servicing.
DekaBank has implemented SunGard’s Asset Arena Compliance solution to provide back-office support for all its pre-trade, post-trade and post-NAV compliance requirements.
Asset Arena Compliance will help DekaBank to control and manage growing volumes of compliance data, adapt to a widening range of complex regulatory rules, and help minimize compliance-related latency issues by offering a pre-installed set of rules that include typical prospectus guidelines, client directions, management restrictions and asset allocation strategies.
Thomas Ketter, head of financial risk management at DekaBank’s business division Asset Management Capital Markets, said, “Asset Arena Compliance gives us a solution that can help us to manage a multitude of compliance scenarios, on a single consolidated platform. Since its successful implementation, we have realized benefits such as improved efficiency for compliance checking of more than 1,000 portfolios and segments, simplified and accelerated integration of additional data and a continued decrease in operational risk.”
Doug Morgan, president of SunGard’s institutional asset management business, commented, “DekaBank has long been a valued customer of SunGard. DekaBank’s selection of our new standalone compliance solution demonstrates that our development and enhancement of the Asset Arena solution suite is recognized and appreciated by our customers.”
Borg Fleet from BorgSolutions and GulfTrak
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Puerto Rico, BorgSolutions is the leading provider of fleet management solutions that effectively reduce operating, labor and other costs for construction, oil & gas, fleet rental and transportation companies. GulfTrak is the Middle East’s premier company leading in business process and data management, dedicated to delivering substantial benefits to its customers through the leveraged experience in providing fleet management consultancy, developing and implementing end-to-end vehicle/equipment asset tracking & diagnostics, and fleet management solutions.
Now, the two leaders have entered into an agreement providing for the distribution and
reselling of the award winning fleet management software platform, Borg Fleet which will now be available under the GulfTrak brand in the Middle East Region, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Borg Fleet, a Web-based software-as-a-service, utilizes a proprietary technology that facilitates predictive maintenance, streamlined work orders, fuel and inventory management, repair scenarios, GPS tracking, diagnostic monitoring, and scheduling through real-time data collection and analytics.
“We have been evaluating the fleet management solutions industry for some time, as the cost-saving benefits from a maintenance standpoint can be staggering for fleet operations,” said Mohamed Grema Saleh, Principal of GulfTrak Asset Management. “It is clear that BorgSolutions’ Borg Fleet, with its ease of functionality and superior performance and groundbreaking artificial intelligence make it a great product to complement our current solutions for our customer base, partners and various distribution channels.”
Mr. Saleh added, “GulfTrak believes Borg Fleet is a product which will help us to attract new customers as well as satisfy our existing ones, as the addition of this exceptionally high quality fleet management platform, with predictive maintenance providing an average decrease of 21% in maintenance costs, truly differentiates our services.
“A key part of our business strategy is to enhance our international presence and expand our distribution channels. The opportunity to align Borg Fleet with such a well-respected and strong player in the Middle East, where our target industries flourish, is a major step for BorgSolutions,” said Chris Borg, CEO at BorgSolutions. “The impressive list of customers for whom GulfTrak is providing their platform gives us a key advantage in exposing Borg Fleet to construction, oil & gas, transportation, service and fleet rental companies in the Middle East.”
Westrock joins hands with Creighton Capital Management
Westrock Asset Management, a subsidiary of 100% Native-American-Owned Financial Services holding Westrock Group, has announced joining of hands with Creighton Capital Management.
The two management units will together develop quantitative asset management portfolios for institutional and qualified investors initially offering an Investment Grade Bond Fund, a High Yield Bond Fund and a Global Equity Market-Neutral Fund. More products will be released throughout 2010.
Jim Creighton has the credit of laying down the foundation of Creighton Capital Management. Jim prides in his 30 years of asset management experience and previously served as Chief Investment Officer at three of the world’s largest investment management firms viz. Barclays Global Investors, Deutsche Asset Management and Northern Trust.
“Jim is a towering figure in the asset management world and we’re delighted to form this joint venture with his firm,” said Donald H. Hunter, Jr., Chief Executive Officer and President of Westrock. “The partnership substantially extends our reach to institutions and makes Westrock one of the few minority-owned firms to offer quantitative products. We expect that this best-in-class offering will make a powerful contribution to our firm’s success.”
An additional announcement was made regarding the fact that the parent company of Westrock Asset Management, the Westrock Group, had been acquired by the Lower
Brule Sioux Tribe. This makes the Westrock Group the first U.S. full service financial services firm to be wholly-owned by a Native American Tribe.
“We’re excited to be working with Don Hunter and the Westrock Asset Management team,” said Jim Creighton, Chief Executive Officer of Creighton Capital Management. “Through our relationship with Westrock, we will be able to deliver cutting edge products to institutional and qualified investors. In addition to producing tangible benefits for our clients, we are excited about the ability to contribute to the economic development of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe through this venture.”
NAMA to buy loans from banks to cleanse balance sheets
Reports that the government may cut initial payments to lenders under a plan to buy 90 billion euros ($129 billion) of loans from them have led to a fall in Irish bank shares.
National Asset Management Agency will buy the loans to cleanse balance sheets and the banks would receive about 80 percent of the loan value immediately. The remaining 20 percent would be paid if the property that was bought with the loan achieved its forecast value on resale by the agency.
Allied Irish Banks Plc fell as much as 18 percent to 2.30 euros and was at 2.50 euros as of 9:23 a.m. in Dublin. Bank of Ireland Plc dropped 17 percent to 2.25 euros.
It was also reported by the Sunday Business Post that Finance Minister Brian Lenihan intends to take majority stakes in the country’s banks as part of the creation of the agency. In order to get support for this bad bank plan, Lenihan will address a parliament committee.
On one hand, Fine Gael, the largest opposition party, plans to vote against the agency in the parliament, and on the other hand, the Green Party, the junior party in the coalition government, is scheduled to hold a convention on the agency to address its members’ concerns.
“There is likely to be much horse-trading in the coming weeks ahead of the NAMA debate and the minister is just highlighting a range of possibilities,” Hughes said. “But it strikes us that the political risk ahead of NAMA is mounting as we approach the crucial debates.”
The 3rd Asset Management Conference to be held in September
The third annual Asset Management Conference will take place Sept. 9-10, 2009, at the Hilton Orlando in Orlando, Fla. The conference is of critical importance in these current economic times, as it will provide information to companies regarding enterprise asset management, asset visibility and lifecycle management solutions to improve to improve utilization, cut costs and boost productivity. The asset management best practices, and the applied use of the latest technologies will be showcased in the conference. The program will include presentations from industry leaders and asset management experts from a variety of fields, including manufacturing, defense & aerospace, healthcare and information technology on how best to deploy new technologies to improve your bottom-line.
The event has been sponsored by Asset Management News, the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), the Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility (AIM), NPMA, and ABI Research.
There will be highly interactive sessions on how to improve asset utilization, increase operational efficiency, manage asset lifecycles, reduce cycle times, create supply chain visibility, calculate ROI, follow regulatory compliance, and establish IT asset management.
This year’s conference advisory board includes a number of experienced industry veterans and recognized asset management experts, including Tom Coyle, Mark IV Industries; Douglas Goetz, Defense Acquisition University; Robert Kaehler, AssetSmart; Robert J. McFarland, CPPM, ITT Communications Systems; Paul Nesbitt, NPMA; Jeffrey Polyak, Sunflower Systems; and Robert Leibrandt, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
Asset management in Government facilities
In case of Government facilities, visibility and decentralized execution is of utmost importance if one needs to improve operational performance and deliver the vital insight managers at all levels so that quick decisions can be made and the needs of stakeholders and constituents can be served better. This can be done by implementing automated identification technology and radio frequency identification (RFID) to locate disassembled parts at various stages of the refurbishing process. This can help detection of bottle necks in time and ensure a huge amount of savings.
Thus, asset management is the essential ingredient for building the visibility in most Government require. Equipment and supply tracking, for example, is critical to air base operations, depot maintenance, fleet management and even intelligence collection and dissemination. So, now is the time for government organizations to do away with inaccurate manual processes, pen and paper and opt for automated real-time information that can dramatically improve performance on mission-critical tasks.
VISTAtsi launches its new website
VISTA Technology Services, Inc. (VISTAtsi), is an employee-owned real property and asset management consultancy specializing in decision support analytics. For more than 25 years, VISTAtsi’s solutions have helped government agencies in improving their performance by cutting costs, eliminating waste and improving efficiency.
The company recently made the proud announcement of the launch of its new website, at www.vistatsi.com, which features several enhancements, including an improved user experience and refreshed content depicting VISTAtsi’s new business offerings. The website also features interactive contact forms, automated e-newsletter subscription and search tools to make it easy and simple for the user to get information.
“VISTAtsi has created all new content and a completely different ‘look and feel’ to give Internet visitors a better understanding of who we are and what we do.” said David B. Baxa, President and CEO of VISTAtsi.
“We hope people will visit our new site and get acquainted with our services and solutions,” Baxa added, “which may be beyond their current perceptions.”
Each page of the new website features the company’s refined service offerings including Real Property Strategic Solutions and Services; Decision Support Solutions Development, Program Management Solutions and Services; and Asset Management Enterprise Systems Solutions.
“At VISTAtsi, we value our guiding principle of open communications,” explained Baxa. “We really took that to heart and designed a site that puts our culture, values and service offerings first and foremost, in a way that is easy to navigate whether you are a current client, potential client, prospective employee or business partner.”