In Brief (four items)

Santander Buying Merrill's P.R. Brokerage

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Grupo Santander Central Hispano agreed to buy Merrill Lynch & Co.'s retail brokerage business based here, the two companies said Tuesday. Terms were not disclosed.The acquisition, which is expected to close in February, includes more than $2 billion of assets under management in 10,000 customer accounts. The deal would make Santander's securities unit the second-largest broker dealer in Puerto Rico, with approximately $3.7 billion of assets under management in more than 17,500 customer accounts, the company said.

The transaction would also mark Merrill Lynch's exit from the retail business in Puerto Rico. Merrill said it will, however, retain its institutional operations there.

Santander Securities plans to distribute some Merrill Lynch mutual funds currently offered to Merrill retail customers in Puerto Rico. The companies said there are no plans to lay off any Merrill Lynch employees as a result of the transaction.

- Jacqueline S. Gold


Irish Firm Purchasing GTE's CyberTrust

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Baltimore Technologies PLC of Dublin said it has an agreement to position itself as the No. 1 provider of electronic security services by purchasing GTE CyberTrust Solutions Inc. for $150 million of stock.The acquisition of the GTE Corp. subsidiary will push Baltimore's market share past Entrust Technologies' and VeriSign's in security systems for electronic business and electronic commerce security. Public key infrastructure will be a particular strength of the new company. Last July, Baltimore was chosen as the digital certificate authority technology provider for Identrus LLC, the consortium of international banks that is building a global security system based on digital certificates. Baltimore has 300 customers in 40 countries, including Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, and the Bank of England.

CyberTrust is based in Needham Heights Mass. Its clients include American Express, MasterCard International, Deutsche Telecom, Swisskey, Telecom Italia, and Sonera Ltd.

The deal was announced at the RSA Data Security show on Monday.

- Carol Power


Profits Up 27% at Wells Mortgage Unit

DES MOINES - Norwest Mortgage earned $277 million last year, up 27% from the year before, the Wells Fargo & Co. unit said Tuesday.The home loan subsidiary, which reported its result separately from Wells, earned $70 million in the fourth quarter, down 26% from the same period in 1998.

Peter J. Wissinger, president and chief operating officer of Norwest Mortgage, said its ability to increase profitability in an adverse environment "demonstrates the value of maintaining a balance" between origination and servicing.

Rising interest rates led to a 25% decline in origination volume last year to $82 billion; fourth-quarter production was $13 billion, off 62%. But higher rates also meant that the consumers whose loans Norwest services were less apt to prepay; as a result, its servicing portfolio did not suffer runoff, and in fact grew 2% to $279.6 billion.

- Marc Hochstein


PrimeVest Acquiring Bisys Brokerage Services

ST. CLOUD, Minn. - PrimeVest Financial Services Inc., a subsidiary of ReliaStar Financial Corp. of Minneapolis, said Tuesday that it has agreed to buy Bisys Brokerage Services Inc., the third-party marketing arm of Little Falls, N.J.-based Bisys Group Inc.Terms of the deal, expected to close in early March, were not disclosed. The acquisition will widen PrimeVest's geographical reach and provide economies of scale, said Randall L. Cicatti, its president and chief executive officer.

PrimeVest provides brokerage services to roughly 600 banks, mostly in the Midwest and East. Bisys Brokerage, based in Concord, Calif., serves about 100 clients, mostly on the west coast. The companies' combined sales in 1999 totaled about $6.3 billion, Mr. Cicatti said.

- Amy L. Anderson

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