Winnipeg-based Great West Lifeco has agreed to acquire the asset management business of Putnam Investments Trust in the U.S. The price tag on the deal is about $4.6 billion.
The deal also gives Great-West a 25% stake in T.H. Lee Partners.
Great-West Lifeco has been pursuing a strategy to expand and broaden its financial services business in the United States as well as in Europe and globally.
Putnam will retain its name, with existing management, investment, distribution and service teams remaining in place. It will operate as a separate business unit of Lifeco, with its own board of directors, as do Lifeco’s other major operating units in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Lifeco expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings before restructuring charges, in its first year. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007, and is subject to regulatory approval and certain other conditions.
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