RHJ International is to buy UK wealth management unit Kleinwort Benson from Commerzbank for 225 million pounds ($359.5 million), the latest in a flurry of private banking sales. The transformational deal, which lifted RHJ shares 8.5 percent, comes on the heels of the sale by Dutch bank ING of private banking units in Asia to Singapore's OCBC and in Switzerland to Julius Baer.
Brussels-listed RHJ, a diversified investment company and spin-off from US private equity group Ripplewood Holdings LLC, aims to push into financial services through the purchase, and is looking for more acquisitions, bank executives said. "RHJI wants Kleinwort Benson for the long term.
They want to be active in the wealth management space and actually plan to build up Kleinwort Benson as a merchant bank and try to put some other financial services companies under its ownership," Robert Taylor chief executive of Kleinwort Benson told Reuters. RHJ's push into financial services is the main strategic focus of chief Executive Leonhard Fischer, who was a Dresdner Bank executive when it bought Kleinwort Benson in 1995 and joined the firm in May 2007.
He brought with him a senior team from former employer Winterthur Group including Martha Boeckenfeld and Heinrich Karl Linz, who are managing directors at RHJ's Swiss arm dedicated to financial services acquisitions. RHJ board member Gerd Haeusler was chairman of Dresdner from 1997 to 2000. RHJ failed to buy General Motors car unit Opel last month and a source at the company said it now plans to divest its mostly Japanese industrial holdings.
The Kleinwort Benson acquisition is RHJ's first major purchase since 2006 and adds a venerable banking brand to its holdings. The private bank traces its origins to the foundation of Robert Benson & Co in 1852. Wealth management operations are attractive buys for banking groups thanks to steady income streams that can offset more volatile capital markets units.
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