GERMANY – The asset management arm of Dutch bank ING says it is planning to open an office in Germany – most likely Frankfurt – for a renewed assault on the German institutional market.

“Yes, we will open, most likely in Frankfurt,” said Martin Nijkamp, managing director of institutional business development in Europe.

He told IPE the ambition was to cover both the institutional market where the firm has won its first mandates – “we hit the ground running” - as well as pursue further opportunities in the fund subscription/distribution market.

“Timing is solely dependent on our hiring progress,” Nijkamp said.

Further details, including who would head the office as well as how many staff would be recruited in Germany, were not divulged. ING IM in The Hague declined to comment.

The Dutch bank is already well represented in Germany through its ownership of Diba, a Frankfurt-based online bank targeted to retail customers. Diba currently has 5.1m account holders whose savings deposits are worth €55.4bn.

Apart from its premier money-market product, Diba offers its retail clients brokerage services, credit lines and access to investment funds.

Between 1999 and 2004, ING was active in Germany’s institutional fund market through its ownership of German private bank BHF-Bank. At the end of 2004, ING sold the then unprofitable BHF-Bank, which owns institutional fund provider Frankfurt-Trust, to Sal. Oppenheim, another German private bank.

ING IM, with €350bn in assets under management globally, is the latest foreign asset manager seeking to break into Germany’s institutional market.

Others that have either opened an office in Germany or plan to shortly are Principal Global Investors and BlackRock from the US, France’s Crédit Agricole Asset Management and Belgium’s Dexia Asset Management.

The influx is being driven by the eagerness among German institutional clients to expand their choice of asset managers. In the past, these clients usually had their asset management done by their German Hausbank.

Another reason for the influx is the current boom in corporate pensions. That boom is being driven by an increasing willingness in corporate Germany to set up external funds to finance pension liabilities.

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