Financial Services

St. Louis is a national center of banking, finance, and insurance. 82,000 St. Louisans - 6% of the region's payroll employment - work in the financial activities sector at banks, investment firms, insurance companies, or in real estate. The average annual pay in the industry, approximately $49,000, exceeds the $40,000 regional average for all industries.

Investment and Securities Firms

St. Louis is home to several national investment firms, including A.G. Edwards, Edward Jones, Scottrade, and Stifel-Nicolaus. A.G. Edwards ranks 687 on the Fortune 1000, and employs approximately 4,600 in the St. Louis region with reported revenues of $2.7 billion for the fiscal year ending in February 2006.

Edward Jones is a large, privately-held investment company with over 8,600 branch offices throughout the United States. Jim Weddle, the managing partner of Edward Jones, was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal describing the firm as, “The decidedly un-Wall Street firm that prides itself on its down-home Midwestern image.”  The firm also recently announced plans to expand its St. Louis area operations by investing $260 million in a new facility and hiring up to 1,000 additional workers over 10 years.

Scottrade, a prominent discount internet stock brokerage firm, recently made news when it purchased naming rights to the downtown arena where the St. Louis Blues NHL hockey team plays, now known as the Scottrade Center. Scottrade is headquartered in the St. Louis region where it employs approximately 500. Scottrade has over 300 branch offices nationwide.

Stifel-Nicolaus, part of the Russell 3000 Index, took a bold step in December of 2005 when it acquired Legg Mason Capital Markets from Citigroup. Through that acquisition Stifel-Nicolaus expanded its operations to include 113 offices in 25 states. In January 2006, the firm continued its planned expansion in the East and Southeast with the acquisition of Ryan Beck Holdings, Inc., a financial advisory firm with approximately 400 financial consultants and $19 billion in client assets under management.

Venture Capital

There are a variety of mid-sized investment and venture capital firms in greater St. Louis. These include Advantage Capital, Ascension Health Ventures, Gateway Associates, Prolog Ventures, and RiverVest Venture Partners. Local venture capital firms have a total of $1.6 billion under management through their various investment funds. The St. Louis region has continued its progress toward becom­ing one of the major centers for venture capital in the central United States. These local venture capital firms, along with significant outside investors, committed $100 million to St. Louis companies in 2006 with almost $1.1 billion invested since 2000.

In 2005, the St. Louis RCGA and the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise launched the St. Louis Arch Angel Network. The Arch Angel Network, with almost 50 members, provides early stage financing to local startups. From inception in 2005 through June 2007, it has invested approximately $7 million in nine early stage companies. These investors and the growing network of startup incubators and support organizations is strengthening the entrepreneurial environment in St. Louis. Venture capital is a key component to commercializing St. Louis’ strong university research and building the area’s reputation as a center for life sciences.

Banking

St. Louis is the regional headquarters for several large banks. Bank of America, Commerce Bank, National City, Regions Bank, UMB Bank, and U.S. Bancorp all have large operations in St. Louis. In 2006, 140 different local, regional, and national banks had a total of $49.5 billion deposited in St. Louis area branches. The largest of the St. Louis-based banks, with overall deposits between approximate­ly $1 and $10 billion were First Bank, Southwest Bank of St. Louis, Enterprise Bank & Trust, First National Bank of St. Louis, The Bank of Edwardsville, Midwest BankCentre, and Pulaski Bank. These and other banks headquartered in St. Louis had a total of $36.7 billion in deposits both in St. Louis branches and nationally.

These banks not only serve local businesses and consumers, but also play important roles in the region’s economic development. U.S. Bancorp’s Community Development Corporation (USBCDC), for example, has been an active development partner through the use of New Market and Historic Preservation tax credits. Kathy Bader, the chairman of the USBCDC, is part of a US Bancorp leadership team that was recently recognized by US Banker magazine as the best team of female executives in the banking industry.

In 2000, MasterCard Worldwide opened its global technology operations center in suburban O’Fallon, Missouri. This 500,000-square-foot facility processes every transaction in the world that involves a MasterCard – as many as 20 million per day.

St. Louis is also home to the headquarters of CitiMortgage, Citigroup’s mortgage lending subsidiary. CitiMortgage employs 4,750 people in St. Louis and has a $90 billion portfolio.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which oversees banking activity in the Federal Reserve’s 8th District, recently expanded its offices in downtown St. Louis. The 8th district’s territory includes all of Arkansas, and parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.

Insurance

Approximately 20,000 people work at over 2,000 insurance related businesses in the St. Louis region. Many of them work in the offices of individual brokers, representing nearly every major insurance carrier, but there are also some insurance companies with a larger presence in St. Louis.

Novato, California-based Fireman’s Fund Insurance relocated and expanded their St. Louis office in 2002 with a further expan­sion in 2006. Eventually the company’s office here will employ 370 people. Centene, a publicly traded Fortune 1000 healthcare enterprise, has announced plans to expand its headquarters with a new 600,00-square-foot building, projecting 800 new jobs by 2010. Anthem, formerly Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri, is also headquartered in St. Louis.

Real Estate

A number of commercial real estate firms, and the many residential-oriented real estate, rental and leasing firms that one would expect for a metropolitan area of 2.8 million people, operate in the St. Louis region. Major firms in St. Louis include Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, CB Richard Ellis, Duke Realty, and Coldwell Banker, plus several regional brokerage firms.

Accounting and Bookkeeping

The 20 Fortune 1,000 companies headquartered in the St. Louis region are served by a diverse and mature group of accounting and financial analysis firms. National accounting firms such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers have offices in the region, and there are a number of large and mid-sized regional accounting firms, including Anders Minkler & Diehl, Brown Smith Wallace, MPP & W and RubinBrown LLP located in the region.

Summary

Greater St. Louis’ financial services industry includes a thriving and diverse array of local, regional, and national firms. Business­es in St. Louis that need financial services will find the services they need, and financial service firms looking to grow will find all the resources they need. Finance is an important growing part of the St. Louis region’s economy. Over the past 10 years, employment in St. Louis’ financial sector has grown by over 5,000.