Ameriprise Financial is about to get a lot busier in Minneapolis. The company announced Wednesday that it will bring nearly $28 billion in client assets and roughly 260 Huntington advisors onto its platform. The move shifts Huntington Financial Advisors’ brokerage, registered-advisor, and insurance operations onto the Ameriprise institutions channel, a major strategic win for the Minneapolis-based firm.
Deal details and scope
Under the agreement, Huntington will transition support of its retail brokerage, investment advisor,y and insurance services, which are currently run by Huntington Financial Advisors, to the Ameriprise Financial Institutions Group. The change will give the bank’s advisors access to Ameriprise’s technology and planning tools. Huntington’s parent company is a roughly $279 billion regional bank with nearly 1,400 branches across 21 states, figures the firms outlined in a joint release, according to Business Wire.
Why Huntington made the move
Huntington is pitching the partnership as a way to modernize its wealth services and deepen customer relationships, saying the arrangement “positions us for continued success and reinforces our unwavering commitment to our people, customers and culture.” The Business Journals described the transaction as Ameriprise’s largest bank partnership to date and highlighted the strategic importance of adding hundreds of advisors to the firm’s institutional channel.
How the deal fits Ameriprise’s momentum
Ameriprise has been steadily building scale across advice and wealth. Its most recent results show assets under management, administration and advisement at roughly $1.7 trillion, giving the firm added heft as it locks in institution-level relationships. That scale, along with rising client flows and higher revenue per advisor, helps explain why banks and credit unions are increasingly shifting support to third-party platforms, Ameriprise Financial reported.
What advisors and clients should expect
For now, Huntington advisors will remain affiliated with the bank while gaining access to Ameriprise’s integrated technology, planning tools and expanded investment solutions, changes the firms say should help advisors scale their practices. The companies have declined to provide a firm timeline for the conversion, leaving details about client account moves and operational timing unclear for the moment, according to WealthManagement.
For Ameriprise, the Huntington agreement is another push into bank channels at a time of heavy competition among broker-dealers and RIAs for advisor talent and retained assets. Both firms say they will share more specifics with advisors and clients as the work to move accounts and systems gets underway.
