Business Strategy and Outlook
| Michael Wong, CFA, CPA |Ameriprise Financial has transformed itself into a financial powerhouse, with $1.4 trillion in total assets under management and advisement and around 10,000 financial advisors at the end of 2021. The firm continues to shift away from insurance and to place more emphasis on asset and wealth management operations. In 2019, the company closed the sale of its auto and home insurance business, and in 2020 it discontinued the sale of its proprietary fixed annuities. Columbia Threadneedle Investments, the firm's global asset-management business, turned Ameriprise into a contender in the global asset management industry. Recently about 80% of revenue comes from the company's wealth and asset management segments that should help the company generate operating margins consistently in the low- to mid-20s compared with midteens to low-20s historically.