The post-Christmas sales have seen UK consumers rushing to land a bargain; while in asset management land, as capital constraints and regulations tighten for banking groups in Europe, several bank-owned asset managers could also be up for grabs in 2012.

So who could be placed in the shop window?

While there are inherent difficulties in forecasting which asset management businesses will be put up for sale, it is reasonable to assume it unlikely that groups looking to buy other asset management businesses themselves will be put to auction.

For example, French behemoths Natixis and Amundi were said to have expressed an interest in Pioneer Investments in 2011.

German-group Allianz also seems unlikely to offload the asset management component of its business, having only recently appointed a new asset management CEO in Elizabeth Corley.

Therefore, banking groups with a lesser focus on asset management as a core business strategy are perhaps more credible candidates for offloading this area of their operations.

Then again, some of those with sound asset management arms may also look to profit.

As these groups have the luxury of not being forced into selling (by lacklustre results or capital constraints), they could try to sell a solid book of business at a reasonable price rather than at a slashed discount.

Already in the New Year, Deutsche Bank was one of the first to come to market and reportedly began accepting indicative bids for its €525bn asset management arm in the beginning of January. The bank has not announced the sale outright but many believe the “strategic review” it is conducting will result in its offloading this part of its business.

In October last year, Dexia was forced to put its asset management arm on the market as part of the bank’s restructuring process.

On the Italian front, Unicredit has, purportedly, been trying to sell Pioneer Investments for years and had generated interest from French giants Amundi and Natixis. However, the sale was put on hold after the group claimed Pioneer will focus on organic growth instead.

Rumour had it that the Banca d’Italia (the Italian central bank) blocked the sale in the eleventh hour. However, Unicredit has denied this to be true.

Also in Italy, Eurizon and Fideuram, part of the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group, have not been doing so well and have been said to have collectively lost around EUR2.2bn. However, there appears to be no speculation that the bank plans to sell its asset management arms thus far.

Eurizon is one of Italy’s largest asset managers in terms of assets under management and therefore effort may be put into turning the business around instead of simply selling it off.

In more sales news, Dutch-group ING sold its Latin American operations as well as its Australia units in 2011. The group plans to further divest its investment management operations by the end of 2013 and is currently preparing a base case for two IPOs in this regard – one for its US Insurance and investment management activities and one for its European and Asian insurance and investment management businesses.

Of course, bank owned asset managers often come with the added issues of having a captive client base which has all sorts of implications for the buying and selling process.

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