Barclays Global Investors has agreed to pay €240m to acquire Indexchange, a German provider of exchange traded funds (ETFs), from Munich-based HVB.

Indexchange will be merged with BGI's own iShares ETF operation in Germany. Each of the operations has €15bn under management, giving them a respective 24% market.

Chris Sutton, chief executive of iShares Europe, also noted that on the European continent Germany was emerging as the ETF provider's "most crucial market". In the last five months, iShares has expanded its business by 84% on an annualised basis.

German bank HVB, which is now
part of Italian banking giant UniCredit, said the sale of Indexchange was part of its strategy to focus on retail, corporate and investment banking in Germany.

The acquisition of Indexchange comes just over a month after iShares announced that Andreas Fehrenbach, former CEO of German asset manager Activest, had joined it as its new German head. Fehrenbach stepped down as Activest's CEO in July as the firm was being absorbed by Pioneer Investments. Dominik Kremer, Pioneer's German head, has succeeded him.