Talk about tax and estate planning. When it decided last month to join the parade of money managers succumbing to deep-pocketed suitors, private banking specialist Fiduciary Trust Co. International made sure the deal -- $835 million from Franklin Resources -- was structured just right. “Many of our clients and employees own Fiduciary stock, so it was important that we did this as an all-stock deal; otherwise, they would be faced with having to sell and pay taxes,” explains Fiduciary CEO Anne Tatlock. “Our clients’ best interests were served.” Fiduciary and Franklin also make a nice business fit. New Yorkbased Fiduciary, founded in 1931, invests in growth stocks and offers none of its own mutual funds. San Mateo, Californiabased mutual fund giant Franklin has a value orientation and no high-net-worth assets. In addition to its valuable wealth management franchise, Fiduciary boasts a raft of prestigious institutional clients, including the United Nations, for which it runs $20 billion, mostly in global bonds, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Together the two firms will have $280 billion in assets and rank among the top 20 U.S. money managers, just behind TIAA-CREF. “Access to Franklin’s infrastructure around the world is critical to our plans for growth,” says Tatlock. “We’re bursting to go.”
