GERMANY – Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) has appointed Marcus Göring to head a new business unit dedicated to so-called ‘master funds’ for institutional investors in Germany.

In a German master fund a single service provider carries out the back-office administration, such as reporting and risk monitoring, of an institutional investor’s funds. The claimed benefits of the process are lower costs and greater transparency and risk management.

DeAM said the 41-year-old Göring, who has been part of its management team since 2000, would head its new master fund unit, while Michael Fuss would be in charge of its sales.

DeAM also said its master funds had already taken in €15bn in assets from institutional investors, adding that this did not include administrated assets from insurers and €5bn from the pension fund of its parent Deutsche Bank.

According to industry experts the low margins of the master fund business mean its viability threshold is €10bn. Indeed, the inability to reach this threshold led to the demise of JP Morgan’s German master fund business and of BHW Invest, another specialist, in February.

DeAM’s other rivals in the German master fund business include market leader Universal-Investment, INKA, Allianz Global Investors and Metzler Asset Management.

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