Sun Life Launches $160 Billion Asset Manager

Financial services firm Sun Life Financial Inc. has launched an autonomous asset management business with C$212 billion ($160.7 billion) in combined assets under management.

The new asset manager, called SLC Management, combines Prime Advisors, Ryan Labs Asset Management, and Sun Life Institutional Investments, which are the company’s affiliated fixed income institutional asset management businesses. SLC Management also replaces the Sun Life Investment Management brand globally.

“The launch of SLC Management builds on the organic growth that we’ve achieved since the establishment of our business and on the acquisitions of Ryan Labs, Prime Advisors and Bentall Kennedy,” said Steve Peacher, president of SLC Management, in a statement.

The seeds for SLC Management were planted in 2014, when parent Sun Life created Sun Life Institutional Investments to offer institutional alternative asset class funds and liability-driven investing strategies to Canadian institutional investors. The following year, the firm acquired Toronto-based Bentall Kennedy Group, and New York-based Prime Advisors, Inc. and Ryan Labs Asset Management Inc. In 2018, it added a leveraged finance group to the firm, and agreed to acquire a majority interest in global real estate investment firm GreenOak Real Estate.

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Sun Life said it intends to merge Ryan Labs and Prime with Sun Life Capital Management at the end of the year. It also said it will transition the investment division managing its general account into the SLC Management business at about the same time.

Of the $160.7 billion in assets under management, approximately $83 billion are in public fixed income, $44 billion are in real estate equity and debt, and $28 billion in private fixed income.

SLC Management will be comprised of two main pillars: a fixed-income pillar and a real estate pillar. The fixed income pillar will operate under the SLC Management brand name, and will include Prime Advisors, Ryan Labs Asset Management, and Sun Life Institutional Investments in the US and Canada. The real estate pillar will be comprised of the merged operations of SLC Management’s Bentall Kennedy business with GreenOak Real Estate, and will be named BentallGreenOak.

The firm said each of the portfolio management teams within SLC Management will retain investment autonomy while having access to a global credit analyst team of 40. The structure is intended to allow the teams to focus on investment performance for SLC Management’s clients.

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Tags: Asset Management, SLC Management, Sun Life Financial

A lot of San Franciscans complain about how costly their city is nowadays. And they have culprits: the well-paid techies who work at places like Google and Facebook, and are pumping up the prices for everything from housing to restaurant meals.

Add Chuck Schwab to that list of grousers. In fact, the founder of his eponymous asset management firm suggested in a recent interview that it could exit the ever-more-expensive city by the bay. “We’re pretty much a national company now,” he told the San Francisco Business Times last month.

“I’m not sure” the company will remain there, Charles R. Schwab, 81, went on. “We’ll continue looking at that as a possibility … the costs of doing business here are so much higher than in some other place.” Schwab, the chairman of Charles Schwab & Co., didn’t seem to be serious, but his bitching is a prominent example of how a lot of longtime residents feel.

What does the company say about the notion of leaving? We’re staying put, the money management powerhouse said in a statement: “Schwab continues to have its headquarters based in San Francisco and a change isn’t currently under consideration.”

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The steady escalation of housing and other costs in San Francisco has gotten a lot of non-tech residents in a lather. Buses that ferry city-dwelling employees at Apple, Google, and the like last year were pelted by unidentified projectiles, which police speculated could be BB pellets or rocks. Many of the tech workers live in the city and commute to Silicon Valley.

Sure enough, the San Francisco metropolitan area is the most expensive in the nation, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Second-most costly is the San Jose region, namely Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco. Among the top 10, the rest are near San Fran, except for Honolulu (No. 4), New York (No. 7), Fairfield County, Connecticut. (No. 9), and Washington D.C. (No. 10).

Chuck Schwab founded the firm in 1971, and for a time it had a sort of outlaw status as a discount broker, charging less than traditional money managers. These days it is one of the biggest financial companies in the nation. While it has opened operations elsewhere, to save on expenses, Schwab has in the past confirmed its commitment to its original headquarters city.

When Schwab launched the business four decades ago, San Francisco was much cheaper, which in addition to its charm, made it a haven for hippies. The hippies are mostly gone and so is the city’s affordability. But at least Schwab is staying, for the foreseeable future.

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