After losing its its asset-management operation in its merger with U.S. Bancorp, Minneapolis-based investment bank Piper Jaffray wants back into the business. CEO Andrew Duff has not been shy about his intentions to return to asset management, which U.S. Bancorp kept after spinning off Piper Jaffray in 2003. To keep pace with other commercial banks, U.S. Bancorp had bought Piper Jaffray in 1998, when the leading commercial banks in the U.S. bought mid-tier investment banks as Congress slowly eliminated the banking restrictions of the Glass-Steagall Act. U.S. Bancorp's asset-management unit was united with Piper Jaffray's business, so when the investment bank was jettisoned five years later, it lacked the lucrative business. Following Piper Jaffray's sale of its brokerage unit to UBS, it now has $510 million to seek out an asset manager. The bank, however, will need more if it expects to buy a well-known asset manager.—Matthew Wurtzel
See story from Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal
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