Gary Whitelaw, CEO of Bentall Kennedy, and Amy Price, COO of the firm’s North American operations, yesterday discussed the acquisition of Bentall Kennedy by Sun Life Financial in an exclusive IREI Shop Talk podcast.
Whitelaw gave the reasoning behind the choice of Sun Life as a partner:
“Sun Life was in many ways a natural. They had been our fourth-largest client across the whole business since 2004 — over 11 years now — and we’d come to know each other very well. Over the last several years their own strategic plan had evolved, and with their new CEO Dean Connor they instituted what they called the Four Pillar strategy, with asset management being a very important one of those four pillars.”
Price had a message for the firm’s clients:
“Who we are today, our team, where we operate, how we operate, it’s not changing. This is a change of ownership, but we’ve been very thoughtful about how we’ve chosen to align with Sun Life. They really share our values, our commitment to client service, our focus on responsible investing and sustainability.”
To listen to the entire conversation, click here.
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Mike Consol is editor of Real Assets Adviser.