Finance History | 707 Second Avenue South — One Ameriprise Share for Five American Express Shares

People treat Ameriprise as a Minneapolis planning firm and a later bank holding company.

The listed company was cut out of American Express on a Friday and printed on a Monday.

The Minneapolis book began as Investors Diversified Services. American Express bought that franchise in 1984. On 1 January 1995 the unit took the name American Express Financial Corporation and sold advice as American Express Financial Advisors.

On 30 September 2005 American Express distributed the stock. Shareholders received one share of Ameriprise Financial for every five shares of American Express. About 246 million Ameriprise shares went out.

Trading opened on the New York Stock Exchange on 3 October 2005 under the ticker AMP. MarketWatch recorded a first trade of 35.30 dollars and a close of 34.70 dollars in 2005 currency.

Standard and Poor's put the new company into the S and P 500 the same day, replacing Providian Financial.

The mechanism is a payments company shedding an advice-and-insurance book so each balance sheet can be priced alone. The card network kept the brand on plastic. The planners kept the Minneapolis tower.

This 29-story building at 707 Second Avenue South opened in 2000 as Ameriprise Financial Center. The firm later said it would leave the tower when the lease expired in 2025 and fold staff into 901 Third Avenue South.

The pin is the public sidewalk on Second Avenue. The interior floors are a working office.

Photo: AlexiusHoratius, 13 January 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Ameriprise Financial Center, Minneapolis.