Montreal's Desmarais family is at it again.

According to BusinessWeek, Great-West Lifeco, the parent of Putnam, is "hunting" for more acquisitions in the U.S., and also in Europe, to grow its footprint in the asset management business.

Great-West Lifeco CEO Paul Mahon recent told Bloomberg that “We’re looking towards acquisition opportunities -- the pension space and asset management space are areas where we’re interested. There’s the broadest set of opportunities in the U.S. There would be a broad but a lesser set in the U.K.”

Great-West is a part of Power Corp., which is owned by the Desmarais family, known for being aggressive and shrewd buyers, but patient owners.

Retirement is a key area of interest for them. During his interview with Bloomberg, Mahon indicated that Great-West is shopping for properties that would boost their presence in pension management.

They're already making their moves. In April 2014, MFWire sister publication 401(k)Wire broke the story that Great-West was buying JP Morgan's record-keeping business. 401(k)Wire also reported that Putnam and the U.S. arm of Great-West were merging their retirement operations.

Mahon didn't outline any specific targets in the BusinessWeek article. 

Edited by: Tommy Fernandez


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