Italian bank UniCredito Italiano last week became the indirect majority shareholder in CA IB Asset Management, a company managing three mutual funds on the Romanian market, after the National Securities Commission (CNVM) approved the indirect change in the shareholder structure.
CA IB is owned by HVB group, which was this year internationally taken over by UniCredito. They did not hold investment management operations in Romania. The same is happening with Banca Tiriac, which is in its turn in merger talks with HVB Bank Romania.
The next step may be a rebranding of the management company, which is one of the new entrants on the market.
"We do not know when the first changes are going to be operated. There will probably also be a change at the brand level. It is, however, too early for us to tell," says Florian Dolea, general manager with CA IB Asset Management.
The company held a 13% share, late last month, of an 80 million euro market. The company this year took over two funds managed by Quadrant Asset Management and launched a third fund specialising in placements in European government securities.
In another deal CNVM sanctioned last week, Swiss Capital brokerage will take over the smallest management company on the market, Active Management International, managing a single mutual fund.
Active Management International is part of Active group and also includes Active International brokerage. Active is owned by US-based group New Century Holdings through Broadhurst fund.
Active Management International did not manage to get a hold on the mutual funds market, with one of the reasons for this being the absence of a distribution network. The company reduced the number of managed funds to one, merging the funds it owned. Late last month, Active Dinamic, the fund managed by the company, held assets worth less than 100,000 euros, accounting for a market share of less than 0.1%, and with just seven investors.
Swiss Capital is owned by businessman Sorin Apostol, controlling more than 99% of stock. He could not be contacted for comment on this deal.
Swiss Capital ranks 14th in the hierarchy of brokers on the Stock Exchange, with a 2.6% market share, handling deals worth about 83 million euros.
Romanian open investment funds at the end of last month had assets worth 80 million euros, with the number of investors standing at slightly above 69,000.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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