GERMANY – BMW Bank, the financial services arm of German car manufacturer BMW, has entered investment fund business with a range of international multi-manager funds, offered through Frank Russell Company, starting on Jul 30.

“ We are expecting a high level of demand for these innovative investment funds, not only from our 500,000 or so bank customers, but particularly from those investors who prefer to have an independent portfolio put together,” says Frank Stenner, managing director of BMW Bank.

Russell has made similar deals recently with DnB Investor in Norway, Bank Hapoalim in Israel, Société Générale and Crédit Nord in France, and ARCA in Italy.
“ We believe that Russell’s business and investment proposition is ideally suited to non-traditional organisations with a strong brand proposition who are looking to offer their clients an attractive investment programme. Indeed, we are talking to several such companies across Europe about the possibility of launching similar programmes,” says Frédéric Jolly, managing director of Frank Russell for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The funds will be integrated into the multi-manager holding fund of Wiesbaden based Delta Lloyd Investment Managers.
There are five different funds in BMW’s offering, ranging from 100% fixed income funds to pure equity funds.