Vienna, Frankfurt: German asset manager Union Investment plans to buy most of the assets left over from the empire of Austria’s Volksbanken, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday, confirming a report in German markets daily Boersen-Zeitung.
Volksbanken, crushed in the financial crisis after a break-neck expansion into eastern Europe, closed as a bank on Friday and became a “bad bank” called Immigon, with the sole purpose of selling €7 billion ($7.78 billion; Dh28.55 billion) of assets.
Union Investment will buy Immigon’s Volksbank Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft and Immo Kapitalanlage units, which the Boersen-Zeitung said had between €5 billion and €6 billion of assets under management.
The sale will cure one headache for the Austrian government, which owns 43 per cent of Immigon and is separately struggling to wind down Heta, the state vehicle for failed lender Hypo Alpe Adria.
Most of the rest of Immigon is owned by other regional lenders in the Austrian Volksbank association. Immigon declined to comment and Union Investment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
