500 downtown jobs will dissolve

Fiserv positions leaving town with TD Ameritrade

David Milstead, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 6, 2007 at midnight

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More than 500 downtown Denver jobs will be lost when Fiserv closes the sale of part of its business to TD Ameritrade later this year.

The Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv employs 900 in its Investment Support Services division in the Manville Plaza. The business serves as a custodian and provides back-office support for 300,000 investment and retirement accounts worth $46 billion.

Fiserv is selling most of that business to Omaha-based TD Ameritrade for up to $375 million, depending on its performance. Bob Beriault, president of the division, will buy the remainder of the business for $50 million.

Fiserv spokeswoman Melanie Tolley said Beriault thinks he'll need between 300 and 400 employees for his chunk. But the Fiserv employees who work with the customers acquired by TD Ameritrade will see their jobs disappear early next year after a transition period.

"In most cases, people will be given at least seven months' notice," said Fiserv spokeswoman Melanie Tolley. "The business and the people have been a valuable part of our company."

TD Ameritrade spokeswoman Kim Hillyer said, "We're buying the assets and not the infrastructure. We may be hiring some Fiserv associates - we're going to need more people to help here because we're bringing in more clients."

But for TD Ameritrade, "here" means San Diego, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Jersey City, N.J., where it runs the type of institutional services it's acquiring from Fiserv.

Fiserv's Denver presence comes from the rollup of several trust companies, including Lincoln Trust, First Trust and Resources Trust. Just over two years ago, the company moved 300 workers downtown from the southeast corridor. It has 167,000 square feet at Manville Plaza at 717 17th St.

There are about 110,000 downtown workers.

"I think it is extremely significant when you lose 500 jobs," said Tami Door, president and CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership. "In this day and age, it takes a lot of other companies to make up that loss. It also further exemplifies why we need to grow more small and medium-sized companies. We need to have midsized businesses that we can grow and keep them here. I do believe this is one of the largest hits we have taken in downtown in a long time. Hopefully, we will not see another one of this magnitude in the near term - or the long term, for that matter."

On the other hand, "with all of the merger and acquisition activity, we as a community and downtown will have to continue to deal with this," she said.

Real estate editor John Rebchook contributed to this report. David Milstead is finance editor of the Rocky Mountain News. He can be reached at milstead@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2648.

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