Scout Investment Advisors, a Kansas City, Mo., unit of UMB Financial Corp., announced Thursday that it had signed a definitive agreement to buy Reams Asset Management Co. of Columbus, Ind. The deal would more than double its assets under management.
Reams, which has more than $9.8 billion in fixed-income assets, works with institutional clients, including Fortune 500 corporations, large public pension funds, Taft-Hartley plans, health-care organizations and universities, foundations and endowments.
Peter deSilva, UMB's president and chief operating officer, said in an interview Thursday that the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, will give Scout additional scale and add fixed-income products that Scout was lacking for its institutional clients. DeSilva said Scout, which had $9 billion of assets under management at Aug. 31, is heavily weighted toward equity products, of which it manages $8 billion worth.
Analysts said that UMB's wealth management strategy is unique, since many banks have divested their asset management businesses in the past five years to focus on their core businesses. But DeSilva said asset management remains a core business at UMB.
The company does not see itself as simply a bank but as a "multifaceted financial services company," he said.
