Here’s something intriguing. According to the Financial Times, Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, is apparently shopping around for a $2.5 – 3 billion American asset manager, deeming it “the missing piece” of their U.S. business.
The planned acquisition comes as the firm hopes to rev up its global asset management business, which they call a pillar for the bank since “institutional investors and households are accumulating financial assets at a very high speed.”
And they seem really serious about it too — they just snapped up UBS’s Alternative Fund Services group for $244 million, merged Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management and Kokusai Asset Management, and are currently planning to pursue closer ties with UK-based Aberdeen Asset Management and Sydney-based AMP, both of which they own 20% of.
What I find interesting here though are the firms within their price range — Evercore, WisdomTree, AllianceBernstein, and Janus Capital are all square in their sights.
Can anyone of you imagine Bill Gross having a new boss right now?
Photo: yo &