ABN AMRO’s Asset Management Business: A moment of truth for Barclays
Mar 21st, 2007 | Filed under: Institutional Investing
Looks like BoNY M will have to update its list of trillionaires. Number one UBS ($2.016t) is being trumped by Barclay’s / ABN AMRO ($2.058t). But the difference is “razor thin” at a mere $42 billion (a tad larger than the GDP of Kenya for those keeping score at home).
While it’s nice to manage more assets than the GDP of the UK itself, some analysts are suggesting that Barclays isn’t actually that interested in ABN AMRO’s asset management business at all. One banker who asked not to be identified told Pensions & Investments yesterday:
“It’s not a great fit…BGI is passive and quantitative, while ABN AMRO is active fundamental. Picking up ABN AMRO’s business doesn’t do much for what BGI is trying to do.”
As regular readers know, we’re not equity analysts. And we have no inside information to share with you on this. But we don’t think Barclays should be so quick to dump ABN AMRO’s asset management business just because it’s “active”.
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