The financial sector on Bay Street will be hopping Friday with news of two major acquisitions by CI Fund Management Inc. CI is acquiring the Canadian operations of Assante Corp., as well as Synergy Asset Management Inc.

CI is paying for $846 million in cash and common shares of CI for Assante’s Canadian operations, which consist of an investment management business with $7 billion in assets under management and one of the country’s largest networks of financial advisors, with 1,000 advisers administering $17 billion in assets.

Assante’s U.S. business are going to be spun off. They are not included in this transaction.

CI is also buying Synergy Asset Management Inc. for approximately $116 million. CI has agreed to issue 1,655,874 common shares of CI and pay $94.3 million cash for Synergy. Sun Life Financial Inc. has agreed to support the transaction by purchasing 860,652 shares of CI for approximately $10.8 million. On closing, this will maintain Sun Life’s ownership interest in CI at 34%.

These two deals are coming one day after CI announced the takeover of Skylawn Capital Corp. The total value of the three deals is estimated at $1 billion.

There is no economic news due to be released on either side of the border, but Wall Street futures are trading in positive territory due to good earnings news from giant chipmaker, Intel. The company expects an increase of 20% in revenue during the third quarter.

Next week, preliminary figures for U.S. GDP are due out. This will help to confirm recent optimism on equities markets — or not.

In Europe at midday, London’s FTSE 100 index is up 0.4%. Frankfurt’s DAX has dipped 0.46%. The Paris CAC 40 is up a mere 0.39%

In Asia, markets finished the week mixed. Tokyo’s Nikkei declined 81.52 points, or 0.79%, to 10,281.17. Japanese banks and steel stocks rose in early trading, profit-taking soon reversed that trend.

Hong Kong stocks closed at a new 13-month high, boosted by a sharp rise in the real estate sector. The Hang Seng Index jumped 117.1 points, or 1.1%, to 10,760.73.

Toronto stocks climbed the fourth straight session Thursday as investor optimism for a strong second-half recovery continued to grow. The S&P/TSX composite index rose 25.38 points to 7,516.45.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average climbed 26.17 points to 9,423.68, while the broader S&P 500 index rose 2.97 points to 1,003.27. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 17.01 points to 1,777.55.