Aegon Asset Management has confirmed its intention to merge Aegon AM Netherlands, TKP Investments and its €50bn UK-based subsidiary Kames Capital under a single board.
The €317bn asset manager said it wanted to integrate its operational activities in Europe in order to improve decision-making and to achieve benefits of scale and costs savings.
Under the current plan, the boards of the three subsidiaries are to be merged into a single European board – chaired by Kames’ chief executive Martin Davis – as part of Aegon AM’s Global Management Board.
The current CEO positions at Aegon AM Netherlands (Erik van der Maarel) and TKPI (Roelie van Wijk) are to disappear in the new setup.
In the reorganisation plan, Van Wijk is to become head of responsible business and public affairs. Van der Maarel, who will remain a member of the Global Management Board, is Aegon’s envisaged chief commercial officer for Europe.
Aegon said forced redundancies would be possible. However, the company emphasised that the investment teams would not be affected, adding that this would also largely apply to the commercial client teams.
A spokesman for the group later said that TKP’s fiduciary services would be ringfenced from the rest of the European organisation through the establishment of separate reporting lines in order to “safeguard the independent nature of these services”.
According to the reorganisation plan, all four current offices are to remain operational and the brands Aegon AM, TKPI and Kames Capital would also remain. The €64bn Aegon AM Netherlands is based in The Hague, while the €28bn TKPI has an office in Groningen. Kames Capital operates from London and Edinburgh.
The remainder of Aegon AM’s assets are largely managed from the US.
Worldwide, Aegon has approximately 1,300 staff, of whom about 300 are based in the Netherlands. At year-end, TKPI employed almost 100 staff.
Speaking to IPE’s Dutch sister publication Pensioen Pro, an Aegon spokesman emphasised that Aegon’s central works council (OR) and the supervisors still had to approve the plan.
The OR has a six-week period to respond, after which Aegon AM will take a decision about the follow-up steps on integration.
Kames and Aegon AM Netherlands have been formalising some aspects of their existing collaborations in recent weeks. Earlier this month Kames named Jacob Vijverberg and Robert-Jan van der Mark – both Aegon AM managers – as co-managers on Kames-branded funds.
Kames CIO Stephen Jones said at the time that the appointments marked “a new point for greater co-operation and collaboration between the two teams and will allow us to optimise and strengthen our capabilities in this very competitive sector of the market”.
This article has been updated to include a statement regarding TKP’s fiduciary services.
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