Universal Investment is a group of companies headquartered in

Frankfurt am Main 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 its na ...

with three regulated

investment companies An investment company is a financial institution principally engaged in holding, managing and investing securities. These companies in the United States are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and must be registered under the ...

based in Germany, Luxembourg and Ireland. Biggest part is Universal-Investment Gesellschaft mbH, founded in 1968. Core offerings are

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 inc ...

services and management company services for

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

companies and

institutional investor An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked co ...

s. The company launches and administers funds for all

asset classes In finance, an asset class is a group of financial instruments that have similar financial characteristics and behave similarly in the marketplace. We can often break these instruments into those having to do with real assets and those having ...

such as

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

alternative investment An alternative investment, also known as an alternative asset or alternative investment fund (AIF), is an investment in any asset class excluding stocks, bonds, and cash. The term is a relatively loose one and includes tangible assets such as ...

s and

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

. According to its own information, the group manages more than 740 billion euros in about 1,900 funds with about 1,000 employees. The company is an affiliate member of

Investment Association The Investment Association is the Trade association, trade body that represents United Kingdom, UK investment managers. Their more than 250 corporate members collectively manage over £7.7 trillion on behalf of clients in the UK and around the ...

. With ''Universal-Investment-Luxembourg S.A''., Universal Investment is also active in Luxembourg, where it is one of the 20 largest management companies with assets under administration of 108 billion euros.

History

In 1968, the company was founded by several German private banks as joint investment company In 2012,

Berenberg Bank Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service investment bank based in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded by the Flemish Berenberg family in 1590 () and ...

and Bankhaus Lampe acquired the shares of Hauck & Aufhäuser and

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) is a universal bank and the Landesbank for some Federal States of Germany (Baden-Württemberg, Rheinland-Pfalz, Sachsen). As of 2018, it is Germany's biggest state-backed landesbank lender. LBBW is a full-serv ...

. With closing date 11 January 2017, the current main shareholder of Universal-Investment i
Montagu Private Equity LLP
who acquired the shares from the former parent companies. In 2019, Universal Investment acquired the IT service provider UI labs, which specializes in front-office solutions, from Lupus alpha. In 2020, the company founded UI Enlyte, a digital asset investment platform based on distributed ledger technology, and acquired CAPinside, an online investment community. In 2021 the group acquired Metzler Bank's Irish fund management company and renamed it Universal Investment Ireland Fund Management Limited. In 2022, the company announced the acquisition of Luxembourg fund administrator European Fund Administration S.A. Also in 2022, Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a minority stake in the company. The acquisition is subject of regulatory clearances.

Shareholder

Montagu Private Equity

References

External links

Official Website
{{Major asset management companies Financial services companies established in 1968 Companies based in Frankfurt Investment management companies of Germany Private equity firms of Europe