Merger of major investment firms getting closer

Asset management firms Pioneer Investments, part of the UniCredit group, and Santander Asset Management, owned by Banco Santander, will sign a merger agreement by the end of the year, Andrea Morawski, UniCredit’s spokesperson told daily Rzeczpospolita. Together the two firms will manage €360 billion worth of assets and will thus become one of top 15 European money managers. UniCredit and Banco Santander will each have a third of the shares in the new company. The rest will be held by Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic, private equity funds which acquired half of Santander Asset Management’s shares in 2013. The new investment firm, likely to be called Pioneer, could go public within the next few years, the daily wrote.