Credit: Shutterstock photoRaymond James Financial, Inc.RJF recently completed the deal to acquire the Troy, Michigan-based The Producers Choice, LLC, a private insurance and annuity marketing organization. Financial terms of deal that was announced in May 2015 were not disclosed.
Producers Choice is a part of the Raymond James Insurance Group ("RJIG"), and its 60 employees continue to work from Troy. Further, former executives of Producers Choice - Blair O'Connor and Dwight Eberts - retain similar positions, albeit in a new entity. O'Connor, now Senior Vice President, Sales, will oversee the newly expanded sales group within RJIG; while Eberts, now Vice President, Sales will supervise the outside distributor channel.
Scott Stolz, senior vice president of Raymond James Private Client Group Investments & Wealth Solutions, said, "This addition of the Producers Choice team with whom we have worked for almost a decade, brings more life insurance and annuity specialists to our firm to support advisors, while also adding a small external wholesale segment we believe can leverage our internal resources for future growth."
This buyout marked the second acquisition for Raymond James this year. In April, the company completed the acquisition of Cougar Global Investments Ltd., a Canadian asset manager, which helped enhance its footprints in Canada. Post the acquisition, Cougar became the wholly owned subsidiary of Raymond James and a sub-advisor to Eagle.
Going forward, we believe Raymond James will continue to close similar opportunistic acquisitions driven by its strong liquidity position. Such transactions are expected to aid the company's top-line growth. However, acquisitions will also lead to mounting costs, which call for better expense-management on the company's part to ease the pressure on financials.
Currently, Raymond James carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked investment brokers include Arlington Asset Investment Corp. AI , Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. IBKR and Piper Jaffray Companies PJC . All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
