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Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Provident legacy: $1 trillion, 2500 local PNC jobs

  It's 25 years since Pittsburgh National Bank bought Philadelphia's Provident to form PNC. The Provident's money-management services arm has morphed into a national player, especially since its 1999 takeover of First Data Investor Services Group, and now competes with Citigroup, State Street, JPMorgan and other giants for global investment accounting and transaction accounts.
  As PNC Global Investment Servicing, the group handles $1 trillion in mutual fund and hedge fund accounts for clients. It employs 5,000 accountants, techs, sales and support people, half of them in Southwest Philadelphia, Wilmington, King of Prussia and Chadds Ford.
  The mutual fund business is consolidating -- it's a mature business, compared to "the go-go growth of the 1990s" -- yet "new hedge funds are raining from the skies," says Ridley native Steve Wynne, the group's chief executive. Unlike its sister unit, investment manager BlackRock Inc., PNC wasn't able to complete its planned spin-off of the group when the IPO market was hot.
  So it's grown by acquisition.  PNC has acquired smaller, specialised firms like Web broker-sales analytics maker Coates Analysitcs Group LP of Chadds Ford and portfolio-accounting specialist Albridge Solutions Inc. of Lawrenceville, NJ (both last Fall) to boost sales and meet demand.
   Wynne's staff labels in the bowels of finance, far from Wall Street glamour -- and from Wall Street's subprime-mortgage nightmares. Last Spring Wynne went back to his alma mater, Widener University in Chester, to give the commencement address: "Conduct yourself ethically...be known as the go-to guy in (your) sector...be self-motivated, period."
   Widener might not have the Wharton School's cachet, but it also trained fellow financial CEOs Edward Hanway of Cigna Inc. in Philadelphia, Jim Hirschman of Legg Mason's $500 billion bond shop Western Asset Management in Denver, and Bill D'Alonzo of $15 billion-asset Friess Associates in Greenville, Del. "It's a great place to be from," said Wynne, whose office is 10 minutes down I-95 from Widener and his old Ridley home,  in Wilmington's Bellevue Corporate Center. 
     
 

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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column, which is printed in the business pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Joe has worked at the Inquirer, mostly, since 1988. He has also written for Bloomberg and Gannett, authored the book Comcasted, majored in economics at Penn, and fathered six children. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com

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