The rapidly growing exchange-traded funds shop
Atlanta-based Amvescap will pay $60 million for PowerShares, a two-year-old company that in just the last 12 months has rolled out 32 ETFs, and will gain about $3.5 billion in assets. Until the deal was announced, Wheaton, Ill.-based PowerShares enjoyed one-of-a-kind status in the market place as its sole, stand-alone ETF provider. That fact adds an interesting asterisk to the acquisition, experts told Dow Jones.
"It's the first primarily broker-sold fund family acquiring an ETF family," said Dan Culloton, an analyst with
The deal also underscores the growing popularity of ETFs and, likewise, their importance in a money manager's product portfolio, Culloton observed.
"In the coming year, fund firms are going to be interested in getting a piece of the action; whether they're launching their own [or] watching for another entrepreneurial startup along the lines of PowerShares to get going," he said.
Marty Flanagan, president and CEO of Amvescap, which is the parent company to the
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