UBS Group, a leader in providing financial solutions to wealthy and corporate clients, today announced that it was selling its minority stake in ClearStream Fund Center (CFC) to the Deutsche Borse.
The deal is worth approximately CHF 390 million though all the commercial transactions and deals between UBS and CFC are expected to continue unhindered in the meantime. It is to be noted that it was in September 2020 that UBS Fordcenter was successfully transitioned to Deutsche Borse.
Suni Harford, President of UBS Asset Management, said: “With the transition now complete, and the business on a strong growth trajectory, our clients are in good hands and Clearstream Fund Centre is well placed for the future. We look forward to leveraging the platform’s leading capabilities and wish the team every success on the next stage of their journey.”
It is clear that UBS is looking to monetise some of the assets that it owns and considering its history, this is something that they normally tend to do. UBS services some of the largest individual and corporate clients all over the world and in Switzerland as well and it is their normal routine to gain and sell assets in order to manage the funds of their clients.
Stephan Leithner, Member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Börse AG and Clearstream Chairman, said: “Clearstream Fund Centre has proved to be a highly complementary business for Clearstream’s fund operations businesses. Our two-step integration approach with UBS has enabled a seamless transition for clients and laid the perfect basis for our continued, long-term partnership with UBS. We see significant opportunities to further grow the global footprint of this business, particularly in Europe but also in Asia Pacific. This transaction is fully in line with our strategy to grow our offering in areas that are benefitting from strong secular growth.”
The Deutsche Borse has been aggressively expanding in its business and in its range of offerings that it has been providing to its customer. It recently announced a partnership with Commerzbank for a platform that would be used to trade illiquid assets like such as art and real estate. In this, they entered the realm of blockchain and tied up with the fintech company 360X for the same.
The deal is expected to be completed by June 2021 and UBS is expected to get a post tax gain of close to $35 million through this deal.
