Deutsche Bank talks with UBS on asset management deal stall

(Frankfurt/Zurich) REUTERS: Talks between Deutsche Bank and UBS to tie up their asset management businesses have stalled, three people familiar with the matter said.
Differences over which bank would control the combined entity have been the main hurdle, two of the people said.

The people, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such a tie-up still made strategic and financial sense and they did not rule out a revival of talks in the future. Deutsche Bank and DWS declined to comment. UBS was not immediately available for comment. The idea of merging the businesses had mushroomed in recent months as Deutsche discussed a possible merger with smaller rival Commerzbank. A deal for Deutsche’s DWS asset management unit could have been a way to finance that merger.

But with the Commerzbank talks having ended in failure, the urgency to do a deal has fizzled.

Any deal to merge DWS with a peer and give it additional scale could also be presented as a strategic revamp of Deutsche after the failure of the Commerzbank talks.

 A combined UBS asset management unit and DWS would have just over 1.4 trillion euros (US $ 1.58 trillion) of assets under management and was considered a good fit because the two are roughly the same size.