Ameriprise 2008 Annual Report Download - page 24

PART I.
Item 1. Business.
Overview
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. is a holding company incorporated in Delaware primarily engaged in business through its
subsidiaries. Accordingly, references below to ‘‘we,’’ ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘our’’ may refer to Ameriprise Financial, Inc. exclusively, to our
entire family of companies or to one or more of our subsidiaries. Our headquarters is located at 55 Ameriprise Financial
Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55474. We also maintain executive offices in New York City.
We are engaged in providing financial planning, products and services that are designed to be utilized as solutions for our
clients’ cash and liquidity, asset accumulation, income, protection, and estate and wealth transfer needs. As of
December 31, 2008, we had a network of more than 12,400 financial advisors and registered representatives (‘‘affiliated
financial advisors’’). In addition to serving clients through our affiliated financial advisors, our asset management, annuity, and
auto and home protection products are distributed through third-party advisors and affinity relationships.
We believe we are well positioned to further strengthen our offerings to existing and new clients and deliver profitable
long-term growth to our shareholders. Our five strategic objectives are:
•Be the leading provider of financial planning products and services to mass affluent and affluent clients.
•Strengthen our lead in financial planning.
•Become the platform of choice for financial planning-focused advisors.
•Capture greater assets and protection in force by improving and expanding our product solutions and extending our
distribution reach.
•Ensure increasingly stronger and more efficient enterprise-wide capabilities.
We deliver solutions to our clients through an approach focused on building long term personal relationships between our
advisors and clients. We offer financial planning and advice that are responsive to our clients’ evolving needs and help them
achieve their identified financial goals by recommending actions and a range of product ‘‘solutions’’ consisting of investment,
annuities, insurance, banking and other financial products that help them attain over time a return or form of protection while
accepting what they determine to be an appropriate range and level of risk. The financial product solutions we offer through
our affiliated advisors include both our own products and services and products of other companies. Our financial planning
and advisory process is designed to provide comprehensive advice, when appropriate, to address our clients’ cash and
liquidity, asset accumulation, income, protection, and estate and wealth transfer needs. We believe that our focus on
personal relationships, together with our strengths in financial planning and product development, allows us to better address
our clients’ financial needs, including the financial needs of our primary target market segment, the mass affluent and
affluent, which we define as households with investable assets of more than $100,000. This focus also puts us in a strong
position to capitalize on significant demographic and market trends, which we believe will continue to drive increased demand
for our financial planning and other financial services. Deep client-advisor relationships are central to the ability of our
business model to succeed through market cycles, including the extreme market conditions that persisted through 2008. We
continue to establish Ameriprise Financial as a financial services leader as we focus on meeting the financial needs of the
mass affluent and affluent, as evidenced by our continued leadership in financial planning and a client retention percentage
rate of 94%. Branded financial plan net cash sales for the year ended December 31, 2008 increased 4% compared to the
year-ago period.
Our multi-platform network of affiliated financial advisors is the means by which we develop personal relationships with retail
clients. We refer to the affiliated financial advisors who use our brand name (who numbered more than 10,500 at
December 31, 2008) as our branded advisors, and those who do not use our brand name but who are affiliated as registered
representatives of ours as our unbranded advisors (who numbered over 1,900 at December 31, 2008). Our branded advisor
network is also the primary distribution channel through which we offer our investment products and services, as well as a
range of banking and protection products. We offer our branded advisors training, tools, leadership, marketing programs and
other field and centralized support to assist them in delivering advice and product solutions to clients. We believe our
approach not only improves the products and services we provide to their clients, but also allows us to reinvest in enhanced
services for clients and increase support for our affiliated financial advisors. This integrated model also affords us a better
understanding of our clients, which allows us to better manage the risk profile of our businesses. We believe our focus on
meeting clients’ needs through personal financial planning results in more satisfied clients with deeper, longer lasting
relationships with our company and a higher retention of experienced financial advisors.
Our five operating segments are:
• Advice & Wealth Management;
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