One big deal is on the books — and another is in the process of being finalized — a sign that merger and acquisition activity continues to accelerate in the money management industry.
Last Wednesday, Lincoln Na-tional Corp. of Radnor, Pa., said that it is selling its asset management unit, Delaware Management Holdings Inc., for $428 million to Macquarie Group Ltd., a Sydney, Australia-based financial services firm. The deal for Philadelphia-based Delaware Management, which had more than $125 billion in assets under management at the end of June, is expected to close at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, sources noted that Ameriprise Financial Inc. of Minneapolis is inching closer to acquiring the equity and fixed-income businesses of Columbia Management Group LLC of Boston, which have about $200 billion in combined assets, as two other potential buyers have now bowed out of the bidding.
Bank of America Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., which owns Columbia, has been shopping the units for months. Ameriprise, along with Nuveen Investments LLC of Chicago and OppenheimerFunds Inc. of Boston, have reportedly been the three most interested parties in acquiring the Columbia businesses.
But now Nuveen, which is owned by the Chicago-based private-equity firm
Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, and OppenheimerFunds, have withdrawn their offers for the units, said one source close to the sale who declined to speak for attribution.
Representatives at BofA, OppenheimerFunds and Nuveen all declined to comment.
Ameriprise didn't return calls for comment.
Ameriprise appears to be set to pay $1 billion to $1.25 billion in cash for the Columbia businesses, the source added.
A formal announcement is expected to come before Labor Day, another source familiar with the deal noted.
News of the deals follows the blockbuster deal in June in which
BlackRock Inc. of New York agreed to buy San Francisco-based Barclays Global Investors, including its iShares exchange traded fund business, for $13.5 billion from Barclays PLC of London.
Other deals are expected, according to market watchers.
The combination of lower profits and a recent stock market rally is likely to fuel mergers and acquisitions activity among asset managers in the months ahead, according to a report released Aug. 10 by Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc. of New York.
A number of publicly traded asset managers, such as Affiliated Managers Group Inc., The
Blackstone Group, Franklin Resources Inc. and Legg Mason Inc. have expressed an interest in acquisitions, the report said.
The deal involving Delaware Management was widely expected.
In its statement, Lincoln said the proceeds of the sale will be used for “general corporate purposes,” including potentially paying back some of the $950 million in bailout funds it received in June as part of the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
It is also assumed that a deal for Columbia would also be used to help it pay back some of the $45 billion in government bailout funds it received.
