Trio of asset managers target Germany with new offices

Three major fund managers have opened offices in Germany in an effort to tap into the country’s institutional investment market.

Swiss investment house Unigestion has moved into an office in Düsseldorf, with staff serving institutions and intermediaries.

Florian Rehm, head of institutional clients for Germany and Austria and head of the new base, said: “Germany has a well-established investment market and the office opening reinforces our commitment to serving German investors.

“A local presence will allow us to strengthen existing relationships, broaden our investor base and work more closely with investors looking for unique investment solutions.”

Unigestion offers strategies focused on equities, multi-asset, alternative risk premia and private equity. It ran €15.5bn in European institutional assets at the end 2017, according IPE’s Top 400 Asset Managers report.

Meanwhile, Hermes Investment Management has opened an office in Frankfurt to be led by Antonis Maggoutas, director of business development for Austria and Germany.

Along with another new office in Copenhagen, the move is the company’s first in continental Europe. It follows the establishment of a base in Dublin as part of its Brexit contingency planning.

Harriet Steel, head of business development at Hermes, said: “Because we have built a strong institutional and wholesale client base in Europe, the establishment of our Frankfurt and Copenhagen offices is the next logical step for Hermes.

“By building a presence on the ground in continental Europe, we will be able to extend the reach of our product offering, client service and stewardship and engagement services.”

Hermes’ Copenhagen office will be led by Magnus Kristensen, director of business development for the Nordic region.

Nikko Asset Management, the $201.8bn (€178.4bn) Japanese investment group, has also chosen Frankfurt as its German home in the “latest stop in our international growth story”, according to the firm’s EMEA chief executive John Howland-Jackson.

He added that the company had experienced “a great deal of interest” in its Asian and global investment strategies for equities and fixed income.

According to IPE’s latest Top 1000 Pension Funds survey, German pension funds had investable assets totalling more than €224bn in 2018.