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US Prairie Tribe Buys Financial-Service Companies

Thomas Coyle US Bureau Chief 10 September 2009

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.

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