One factor is Congress' 1999 removal of Depression-era barriers to banks and Wall Street firms getting into insurance. With some 12 million customers, American General is one of the country's biggest sellers of annuities, life insurance and consumer loans. A lot of desirable life insurers are ripe for the taking. Liberty, which announced plans to sell its operations last November, still has several attractive targets, but executives have said they intend to keep the popular mutual fund family, Stein Roe. The Europeans have heavy ammunition because they tend to sport richer multiples than U.S. life insurers.
Life insurance is big business too.
Although the recent gyrations of the stock market have slowed sales of these products, the European insurers don't care. The wealth management business in the U.S. has nowhere to go but up. Fill in this form for your free trial issue. U.S. indexes are real-time. Forbes 40 Index powered by Telemet .