Stifel to acquire Indiana underwriter, wealth manager

Stifel Financial Corp. has scored another wealth management and investment banking acquisition, announcing Tuesday it had agreed to buy City Financial Corp. Indianapolis, Ind.-based City Financial is the parent of City Securities Corp., an independent investment bank focused on wealth management and municipal underwriting in Indiana and the Midwest. City Securities has 40 private client advisers in eight offices across Indiana that manage about $4 billion in client assets, according to Stifel. The public finance group is the leading underwriter of Indiana municipal bonds, Stifel says. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Two other City Financial subsidiaries, City Securities Insurance and City Real Estate Advisors, are not part of the transaction. Stifel CEO and chairman Ronald Kruszewski has built the firm over the past decade through a series of mergers and acquisitions. For example, in 2015, it acquired Barclay's U.S. wealth management unit. “We have known the management team at City Financial for a long time and have always been impressed with their leading market position in the public finance and wealth management businesses within the state of Indiana,” Mr. Kruszewski said in a statement. Not all Stifel's acquisitions work out. Stifel earlier this summer dumped an independent brokerage business it acquired in 2015, Sterne Agee Financial Services Inc., selling to INTL FCStone Inc., a financial services company with roots in commodities. The sale affected about 600 independent reps and advisers. In the past, Mr. Kruszewski had been critical of the independent broker-dealer business, saying he was looking for better performance. (See: Stifel's purchase of Sterne Agee likely not its last )