BNP Paribas Buys Commerzbank's Depotbank Business

This deal was "in the air" for quite some time and several tries have been rumored. Other articles have named this deal the kick-off for the long awaited shrinking of the depotbank market in Germany. I am not sure that it would make the market pick up the pace in that regard.

The article uses a nice definition for depotbank: "Depotbank is a German term referring to a custodian carrying out clearing, custody and trustee services", a discrimination rather unknown in the anglo-saxon dominated world.

One challenge in carrying out this deal could be the IT infrastructure that the depotbank uses jointly with the core custody business or its outsource partners and that could require a major investment if the business is not completely migrated over to the BNP systems.

Dexia fund arm sale suffers setback

The acquisition of Dexia Asset Management by private equity firm GCS Capital seems to stumble says Ignite. This looks like a déjà vu: Deutsche Bank wasn't able to sell its fund admin arm to Guggenheim. Other deals did materialize, e.g.: BlackRock acquired Credit Suisse’s ETF business and Orix Corporation closed on Robeco, Rabobank's fund business.