SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 15/11 – Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) and EverKey Global Partners (EverKey) announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement for Wells Fargo to acquire EverKey, an investment boutique that offers global equity strategies to institutional clients.

EverKey Global Partners was established in December 2007 by Jeff Everett, formerly president and chief investment officer of Templeton Global Advisors Limited. In this role, Mr. Everett had responsibility for all portfolio management activities for all funds within the Templeton Global Equity Group, encompassing 35 portfolio managers and analysts. He served as lead portfolio manager of the $10 billionTempleton World Fund from 1995 to 2007, in addition to several other funds and accounts totaling approximately $35 billion in assets under management. The 11Zmember EverKey team has offices in the Bahamas and New York and manages global equity strategies for institutional clients in Japan and North America.

The Investment team at EverKey will become part of Wells Capital Management (WellsCap), the wholly owned institutional asset management subsidiary of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., and part of Wells Fargo’sAsset Management Group. In line with WellsCap’s multiZboutique asset management model, the EverKey team will remain an independent investment team with no change to its structure, investment philosophy, or location; all dayZtoZday management will reside with the current team. The transaction is expected to close by January 1, 2012.

“We are thrilled to partner with a firm that has the breadth of distribution, global infrastructure, and the commitment to excellence in investment and risk management of Wells Capital Management,” said Jeff Everett, founder and lead portfolio manager of EverKey Global Partners. “With their support, we look forward to continuing to invest in line with our core investment philosophy and research investment opportunities across the globe on behalf of our clients in our global equity strategies.”

“We remain focused on broadening our investment capabilities to meet the needs of our clients,” said Mike Niedermeyer, executive vice president of Wells Fargo and chief executive officer of Wells Fargo’sAsset Management Group. “The addition of EverKey further enhances WellsCap’s global equity capabilities and reflects an ongoing commitment to our multiZboutique business model. We believe that by continuously building and refining a deep bench of independent investment teams–each with specialized investment capabilities and autonomy over their research and investment decisionZmaking processes–we are uniquely positioned to meet client needs and deliver value to investors.”

This is an excerpt from Insurance News as it appeared on December 19, 2011. For updates or to read the current version of this post in its entirety, please click here.

Continue reading this post >