Non binding offers for Pioneer Investments asset management group are due to be delivered by next September 19th, Il Sole 24 Ore writes, adding that just five asset management companies (Allianz, Generali, Poste Italiane, Amundi and Macquarie) have been allowed to submit bids to the mandated advisor JPMorgan.
Unicredit’s ceo Jean-Pierre Mustier is actually said to have decided to avoid bids coming from private equity firms at least at this time. Among other expressions of interest that have been set apart are said to be also the ones from French bank Natixis and the Italian asset manager Anima sgr,
It is anyway possible that each of the five bidders choose to enroll a private equity firm in their deal as it had been the case with Banco Santander which had set up a cosortium with Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic, before the whole deal broke up (see here a previous post by BeBeez) or to enroll an Italian asset manager as this might be the case of Poste as the group owns a 10.3% in Anima sgr already.
Pioneer is said to be valued about 3 billion euros. As for the Santader’s agreement, Pioneer had been valued 2.75 billion euros, including debt, that was just a bit more than 10x Pioneer’s expected year 2014 ebitda (about 270 million euros). On June 30th 2016 Pioneer had assets under management for 220.7 billion euros and the consolidated H1 2016 Unicredit group’s results (see page 28) shows a 165 million euros ebitda (from 311 millions at the end of 2015) and a 423 million euros net banking income (from 919 millions).
