Pioneer Global Asset Management and Santander Asset Management will be combined later in 2016. The Asset Management units of Italian UniCredit and Spanish Santander have signed a binding master agreement to create a leading global asset manager that will have around 370 billion euros (alomost $400 billion) in assets under management.
According to a UniCredit statement filed at the Borsa Italiana, the binding agreement to combine Pioneer Global Asset Management and Santander Asset Management follows the conditions announced on April 23rd, in which it was stated that the resulting company would be called Pioneer Investments, and have an estimated valuation of 5.4 billion euros ($5.8 billion).
Juan Alcaraz, CEO of Santander Asset Management, would be in charge of the new entity, while Pioneer’s current CEO and CIO, Giordano Lombardo, will become the company’s new Global CIO.
The new manager will be owned by UniCredit, Santander and the private-equity funds Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic, which already own half of Santander’s asset-management business.
As the next step, the parties will be seeking the necessary regulatory and other approvals in many of the markets where the two firms have a presence.