Albridge to be acquired by PNC

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc. of Pittsburgh today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lawrenceville, N.J.-based Albridge Solutions Inc., a provider of portfolio accounting and enterprise wealth management services. The Albridge platform provides advisers with an aggregate view of their clients’ assets as well as performance reporting and analysis capabilities. “Our hope is that RIAs will consider this as nothing but good news in that Albridge is now going to be backed by a very large stable organization with a lot of resources behind it and that they’ll only expect even bigger things from us in the future,” said Greg Pacholski, president of Albridge Solutions. He went on to say that the companies currently had no plans for changes in management due to the deal and that Albridge would operate as a division with PFPC. He also said that Albridge would continue its current work with other vendors it is already supporting. “Clearly for PNC it’s [Albridge] is a great franchise to get, it’s a business that’s well thought of — for RIA firms I think this should be of huge interest,” said senior analyst Alois Pirker of the Boston-based Aite Group LLC. PFPC, a provider of processing, technology and business solutions to the global investment industry with over $2.5 trillion in total assets, should provide Albridge with easy access to expand it’s core offerings to a much larger customer base. While the financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed the acquisition is expected to close by the end of the first quarter 2008.