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After divesting a brokerage unit this month and selling a stake in a proprietary fund arm last year, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. does not plan to shed other units that are not carrying its brand, the Pittsburgh company's top wealth management executive said, but analysts are skeptical about how long that strategy will last.
"It is not part of our strategy to come up with one unified brand and divest everything else," said Michael Mor-tensen, the president of PNC Investments. "There are only a few companies that are under their own brand still, but we are very comfortable with that, and we are not looking to sell them."
Since the sale this month of the Louisville brokerage unit, J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons Inc. to Houchens Industries Inc. of Bowling Green, Ky., the $131.4 billion-asset PNC has only two units that continue to use their own brands-the administration services provider PFPC Worldwide Inc. and an ultra-high-net-worth group, Hawthorn-and neither is on the block, Mortensen said.
But analysts said that PNC's interest in PFPC, like its investment in Hilliard Lyons and BlackRock Inc., could change.
"Over time, given the right opportunities, if PNC is ever confronted with a situation where they need to make an enormous technology expenditure to remain competitive, that would be a catalyst for PNC to sell PFPC," said Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. "As long as PFPC can continue to deliver strong results without abnormally high expenditures, PNC will be very comfortable keeping it, but...