Star Tribune- Minneapolis Star Tribune- A terrible year for financial stocks isn’t keeping Ameriprise Financial Inc. from growing. The Minneapolis-based financial planning and insurance company announced Monday that it will acquire the asset management firm J&W Seligman & Co. Inc. for $440 million.

Seligman, based in New York, manages an $18 billion portfolio of mutual funds, closed-end funds, hedge funds and institutional accounts.

Ameriprise financed the deal with cash on hand; it had $3.8 billion in cash as of December. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter and will add to earnings and return on equity in 2009, Ameriprise said.

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