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US Prairie Tribe Buys Financial-Service Companies

Brule, S.D.-based LBC Western Holdings, a company owned by the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, has acquired Westrock, a Chestnut Ridge, NY-based company with independent broker-dealer, asset-management and wealth-management subsidiaries.
"The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe has made an investment in Westrock
to diversify our sources of revenue and participate directly in
the United States capital markets," says Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
chairman Michael Jandreau. "We believe this investment will make
a significant contribution to our Tribe and other tribes
throughout the nation as Westrock expands its institutional
capabilities and continues its wealt- management activities."
Westrock plans to provide financial-advisory services to the
Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and other tribes throughout the U.S.
through its new Tribal Services Advisory group, which will be led
by Dennis Ickes and Gavin Clarkson, a professor of law at the
University of Houston Law Center and a Choctaw from
Oklahoma.
"Westrock is a nimble firm and we will take advantage of the new
opportunities available in the evolving financial services
sector," says the firm's president Donald Hunter. "Becoming a 100
per cent Native-American-owned firm will allow us to expand
initiatives we`ve begun this year."
In another development, Westrock's asset-management unit has just
entered into a joint venture with Sausalito, Calif.-based
Creighton Capital Management to market a series of
quantitative-investment funds.