View of the Union Investment-Skyscraper at a sunny winter day 2013

Union Investment (; formal name Union Asset Management Holding AG) is the investment arm of the DZ Bank Group and part of the cooperative financial services network. It was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

. Trading in

open-end fund Open-end fund (or open-ended fund) is a collective investment scheme that can issue and redeem shares at any time. An investor will generally purchase shares in the fund directly from the fund itself, rather than from the existing shareholders. ...

s occurs in part through the 1,101

credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...

s in Germany (Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Co-operative, including Sparda-Banks, PSD-banks, etc.) and in part through the external services of Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG, DZ Bank Group's

building society A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingd ...

. The primary shareholders in Union Investment are DZ Bank with 54.44% and

WGZ Bank The WGZ Bank (officially WGZ BANK AG Westdeutsche Genossenschafts-Zentralbank) was the umbrella organization of some 230 cooperative financial institutions in the Rhineland and in Westphalia. Based in Düsseldorf, the company offers long-term real ...

(the central bank of the credit unions in the

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...

and

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

) with 17.72%. Other shareholders include

BBBank The BBBank eG (formerly ''Badische Beamtenbank'') is a German cooperative bank headquartered in Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg). It is solely focused on private banking. With total assets of almost 11 billion Euros and over 470,000 members the bank ...

and the credit unions through their membership associations. , Union Investment has self-declared assets under management of approximately 368.2

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

.Kennzahlen
Kennzahlen im Überblick, Union Investment, retrieved 4 April 2020

Subsidiaries

Union Asset Management Holding AG has 15 subsidiaries, including: * Attrax S.A. in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

for funds

brokerage A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be con ...

, distribution, share administration and custody services * Union Investment Institutional GmbH for institutional clients * Union Investment Institutional Property for institutional

property investment Real estate investing involves the purchase, management and sale or rental of real estate for profit. Someone who actively or passively invests in real estate is called a real estate entrepreneur or a real estate investor. Some investors actively ...

s * Union Investment Luxembourg S.A. in Luxembourg * Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH offers open-end funds to private investors * Union Investment Real Estate GmbH (formerly DIFA Deutsche Immobilien Fonds AG) is the second largest German property investment association * Quoniam Asset Management GmbH follows a quantitative approach to investment and manages funds for institutional clients

History

The Union-Investment- Gesellschaft mbH was the third German investment association to be founded, on 26 January 1956, by 14 credit unions. The UniFonds

stock fund A stock fund, or equity fund, is a fund that invests in stocks, also called equity securities. Stock funds can be contrasted with bond funds and money funds. Fund assets are typically mainly in stock, with some amount of cash, which is genera ...

was created the same year as its first open-end fund. The first offering of investment vehicles outside Germany was in 1961, in Belgium. Co op Immobilienfonds Verwaltung AG was founded in Hamburg in 1965 and in 1980 renamed Deutsche Immobilien Fonds AG or DIFA. The initial stockholders were the Central Institute of Consumer Cooperatives and the Bank für Gemeinwirtschaft. In 1966 DIFA launched an open-end property fund, Co op Immobilienfonds, later renamed DIFA-Fonds Nr. 1 (DIFA Fund No. 1). Starting on 15 January 2007, DIFA did business under the name Union Investment Real Estate AG; in 2009 it was converted to a GmbH. Since 1967, Union Investment has offered management of investment accounts. In 1968, it offered its first retirement fund, UniRenta. In 1969, it reached a fund capitalization of 1 billion DM. Union Investment Luxembourg S.A. was founded in 1988. The total capitalization of the group was now 10 billion DM. In April 1994 Union Investment began offering stock-based wealth management with three strategic variants: chance, growth and security. In 1996 it introduced stock-based life insurance under the name Opti Plan. The

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Union-Fonds-Holding AG was founded in 1999 and changed its name in July 2002 to Union Asset Management Holding AG.

Distinctions

In March 2013 Union Investment became the first investment association to be awarded five stars eleven times in a row in the

investment fund An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages in ...

s guide of the German business magazine '' Capital''."Union Investment im Club der '5-Sterne-Gesellschaften'"
Press release, Fondscheck.de, 12 March 2013, retrieved 27 July 2013

References

External links

Union Investment website
{{Authority control Financial services companies established in 1956 Investment companies of Germany 1956 establishments in West Germany Companies based in Frankfurt German companies established in 1956