Deutsche Bank has formed a top-level committee of managers to guide the bank’s dealings with sovereign wealth funds, following in the footsteps of other banks that have sought to develop closer relationships with these influential investors, Financial News reports.
The nine-member steering committee will be chaired by Deutsche Bank vice-chairman Caio Koch-Weser and will include senior managers from the organization’s asset management, global markets, global banking and private wealth management divisions, a spokesman for the bank confirms.
It marks the latest move by a top investment bank to increase its focus on sovereign wealth funds, particularly those in the Middle East and Asia, which have become the hot sector of 2008 after pumping billions into Western financial institutions hit by the credit crunch.
The committee has drawn up a short list of funds with which it wants to develop relationships, although it declined to comment on any specific names.
Over the past nine months, banks have increased their efforts to woo sovereign funds and have moved senior bankers to the Middle East.
Citigroup, which has received billions of dollars in funding from Middle East investors, including $7.5 billion (€4.9 billion) from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, last week said Alberto Verme, the co-head of its global investment banking business, would be relocating from New York to Dubai.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have also moved senior staff to the Middle East and have made moves to increase their coverage of funds based in the region. Barclays Capital named Gay Huey Evans to a new post to cover sovereign wealth funds in March.
Deutsche Bank coverage bankers based in the region will remain the main “gatekeepers” between it and sovereign wealth fund clients, the spokesman says.
Deutsche Bank has been at the forefront of moves to develop substantial investment banking businesses in emerging markets.
In 2005, it acquired Moscow-based broker United Financial Group and it was one of the first to move into the Turkish market with the purchase of Bender Securities the same year.
Speaking in March, after a three-week tour of Singapore, China and the Middle East, Deutsche Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann said sovereign wealth funds were becoming more discerning investors and were no longer prepared to make large investments that might lose substantial sums of money.