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The Star Fund, one of the largest pension savings funds in our country, distributed by ING Belgium and Belfius, will soon be managed by the American banking giant Goldman Sachs after a new billion-dollar deal.
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Goldman Sachs Asset Management, the asset management arm of the American financial giant, announced on Thursday morning that it is putting 1.7 billion euros on the table to acquire NN Investment Partners.
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NN Investment Partners is the fund arm of the Dutch insurer NN Group
and manages 300 billion euros in client assets. In Belgium, the company is best known as the manager of the Star Fund, one of the largest pension savings funds in the country. It manages some 4.9 billion euros and is distributed by ING Belgium and Belfius.
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Now that NN Group is selling its fund arm, that popular Star Fund will eventually also be managed by Goldman Sachs. The billion-dollar deal should be completed in 2022. NN Investment Partners, whose head office is in The Hague, also has a branch on Marnixlaan in Brussels. According to the annual report for 2020, 23 people work there. .
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NN Group put its fund division up for sale last spring. The Dutch had been under pressure from shareholders for some time to streamline their activities more. The sale of NN Investment Partners meets this requirement.
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There was no lack of interest in the Dutch fund subsidiary. The German asset manager DWS, the Swiss UBS and the Italian and German insurers Generali and Allianz were also mentioned as potential buyers.
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Consolidation
Goldman Sachs won the battle. The American group expects to close the transaction in 2022 and enters into a partnership whereby it will continue to provide asset management services to NN Group for the next ten years.
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Due to the unstoppable advance of passive investing and the arrival of larger international players, the profit margins of asset managers are under pressure.
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The billion-dollar deal once again highlights the wave of mergers and acquisitions in the European fund industry. Due to the unstoppable advance of passive investing and the arrival of larger international players, the profit margins of asset managers are under pressure. Scale is becoming increasingly important. Strategic choices are required.
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For that reason, the French Amundi bought Lyxor, a subsidiary of the banking group Société Générale, which specializes in listed investment funds. The insurance group Athora, known here as the acquirer of Generali Belgium, decided this year to sell its asset management subsidiary Actiam.
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