GERMANY - Deutsche Bank's asset management division, including private clients and institutions, has recorded €21bn in net inflows in 2006, helping to lift its assets under management (AUM) worldwide to €908bn.

Deutsche Bank said last year's inflows to the division, known as PCAM, were due "to the successful implementation of private wealth management's growth initiatives and continued inflows in the asset management business".

But the growth in PCAM's total AUM was also helped by two acquisitions in 2006. They included Tilney, a private wealth manager in the UK and norisbank, a German retail bank.

Finally, Deutsche added that market gains and favourable foreign exchange contributed €8bn to the total AUM. In terms of worldwide AuM, Deutsche is Germany's second-biggest asset manager after insurance giant Allianz, which runs more than €1bn worldwide.

Deutsche also said underlying pre-tax profit at PCAM rose 13% in 2006 to €2bn. PCAM's underlying revenues, meanwhile, rose 8% to €9.1bn.

PCAM's improved fortunes in 2006 contrast with those in 2005. That year, the division saw its AUM decline €7bn. The outflows were partly caused by its former institutional businesses in the UK and the US. Those businesses, formerly part of Deutsche Asset Management, were sold to Aberdeen Asset Management in July 2005.

Separately, Pioneer Investments, a unit of Italian banking giant Unicredit, said it had acquired Hamburg asset manager Nordinvest for an undisclosed sum. Nordinvest has €5.5bn under management.

Pioneer's acquisition is part of UniCredit's absorption of the various businesses of Germany's HypoVereinsbank, which it bought in June 2005. Last fall, Pioneer completed the integration of Activest, which, at last count, managed €43bn in institutional assets from its base in Munich. Pioneer is understood to have paid €600m for Activest.

As a result of Pioneer's takeover of Nordinvest, its German head Dominik Kremer will be put in charge of the asset manager's supervisory board. Kremer replaces Udo Bandow, who was one of Nordinvest's founders in 1969.

Pioneer also said that by 2010, it aimed to raise its AUM in Germany to €75bn from €49bn currently.