Banco Santander agreed on Wednesday to buy back a 50 percent stake in Santander Asset Management unit from US buyout funds Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic and explore alternatives (including ipo) with those same private equity firms as for the sale of its 50% stake in Allfunds Bank, a multimanager distribution platform of asset management products targeted at institutional investors (see Reuters here).
The other 50% stake in Allfunds Bank is owned by Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo bank, through its subsidiary Eurizon Capital sgr, which in turn confirmed yesterday its intention to sell (see here the press release).
Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic surely are not the sole private equity firms being interested at the Allfunds dossier. Advent International and Bain Capital are said to be working on the deal (they are partners in Italy in Icbpi payment services banking group, together with Clessidra) as well as Cinven, Permira, BC Partners e Hellman & Friedman.
Allfunds Bank has about 215 billion euros in assets under management and is valued about 2 billion euros (see here Allfunds’ FY 2015 consolidated financial statement). Analysts in italy say that Intesa sdanpaolo will cash in an 850 million euros capital gain from the sale at that price (see here MF Milano Finanza).
