GERMANY - Deutsche Bank has shifted the asset management business of Postbank to its subsidiary DWS as part of an ongoing restructuring.
In the coming months, DWS is set to take on nearly 60 of Postbank's retail funds and Spezialfonds, with more than €7.7bn in assets.
The deal will be finalised in the third quarter, Postbank said.
At the moment, neither the names nor the make-up of the funds will be changed, the bank said.
However, the German media has speculated that a number of fund mergers are in the offing.
News of the transfer represents the next step in the integration of Postbank, in which Deutsche Bank bought shares in 2008.
The complete takeover of Postbank had been delayed by the financial crisis, but was finalised at the beginning of this year, costing Deutsche Bank around €6bn.
Parts of DWS had been up for sale as part of Deutsche Bank's asset management division, but it is now set for a restructuring later this year.
In its announced "strategic review" of the asset management business last November, Deutsche Bank said DWS's retail operations in Europe and Asia would not be up for sale.
DWS is currently the market leader in Germany in retail funds, with around €140bn in AUM.
As at the end of February, Deutsche Bank held 93.7% of Postbank, which has one part of its business in Frankfurt and one in Luxembourg.
The Luxembourg authorities have yet to approve the deal.
Postbank will now focus on its core consumer banking business and confirmed it would continue to cooperate with other "renowned" asset managers in addition to DWS.
In other news, French asset management firm Lyxor has teamed up with consultancy Koris International to design fund-of-hedge-fund investment solutions for institutional investors.
Under the commercial and marketing partnership, Lyxor and Koris will develop a number of strategies based on the funds available on the Lyxor Managed Account Platform.
The partnership will run for at least two years.
While Lyxor's platform will apply liquidity and systematic risk control to alternative strategies, Koris International will focus predominantly on quantitative asset allocation technologies.
The companies said investment solutions would be tailored to small institutions, family offices and private banks seeking "asymmetry" in the risk-return profiles of their investments, as well as access to the alternative investment strategies available on the Lyxor Managed Account Platform.
The partnership will also see the two companies jointly marketing the investment solutions to European investors, with Lyxor managing the portfolios and Koris International acting as an independent adviser.
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