Zurich Sells Scudder Financial Unit to

The Anglo-Swiss group Zurich Financial Services (ZFS) and Germany’s Deutsche Bank (DB) announced agreement on a number of cooperation initiatives and the sale of business assets, most notably the transfer of fund manager Zurich Scudder Investments to DB for $2.5 billion.

The acquisition of Scudder gives DB an additional 35 million clients, mostly in the U.S. and another $278 billion of assets under management. ZFS will acquire 75.9 percent of Deutscher Herold, DB’s German insurance division, and 100 percent of its life operations in Italy, Spain and Portugal. The total value of the transactions is slightly over $1 billion.

The deal will strengthen ZFS’s presence in continental Europe, particularly in the German, Spanish and Italian markets, which are growing rapidly. Part of the cooperation agreement provides that ZFS will provide DB’s banking and asset management services to its clients, and DB will distribute ZFS’ life and non-life products in its branches throughout Europe.

ZFS will eventually net around $700 million from the deal. There may also be further deals in the works as both companies said they would “continue to explore joint marketing and product development opportunities throughout Continental Europe.”|”zurich, sells, scudder, financial, unit,