A European, multinational financial services may be on the hunt for asset managers on both sides of the pond.

Ulrich Koerner UBS Group AG President of Asset Management, and President of UBS Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Management at Swiss bank UBS [profile] is considering acquisitions or joint-ventures in the U.S. retail or specialty asset management businesses, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed sources. Those sources describes such M&A possibilities as a way for UBS to boost the scale of its 3,600-employee, $800-billion-AUM asset management arm, though they don't expect it to buy, in Bloomberg's words, "any single very large acquisition."

UBS already has asset management business operations, with a notable presence in Chicago. And it also has a U.S. wealth management business, one of the industry's four wirehouses.

Ulrich Koerner, president of UBS' asset management arm worldwide, reportedly hinted last week (at UBS' investor day in London) that UBS might be able look at M&A again now. At that event, he described asset managers with between 50 billion Swiss francs ($49.85 billion) and 500 billion Swiss Francs ($498.5 billion) in AUM as being likely targets for acquirers. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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