The fate of
Pioneer Investments [
profile] is up in the air, again, thanks to big changes at its parent company.
| Federico Ghizzoni UniCredit Chief Executive Officer | |
Reuters reports that, per four unnamed sources, Italian multinational bank
UniCredit is putting the complicated Pioneer deal with
Santander on hold thanks to an impending search for a new UniCredit CEO. Current UniCredit CEO
Federico Ghizzoni will
leave once they find a successor. [See
MFWire's living timeline of the Pioneer auction for more details and history.]
CityWire Selector also covered the Pioneer deal news.
A year ago UniCredit and Spanish multinational bank Banco Santander
unveiled a deal to combine their global asset management businesses, with backing from private equity firms
Warburg Pincus and
General Atlantic, and a few months later they
signed a binding agreement. That deal would put the U.S. arm of Pioneer under a new Pioneer Investments holding company, with UniCredit owning 50 percent and the private equity firms splitting the rest. Meanwhile, for the non-U.S. UniCredit and Santander asset management businesses, the new holding company would own two-thirds and Santander would own a third.
| Lisa Jones Pioneer Investments Head of the U.S., President, Chief Executive Officer | |
Now, one source tells
Reuters, the Pioneer deal "is currently frozen" and whoever takes over at UniCredit "will review the deal." That source told the wire service that a "queue" of other buyers, besides Santander and Warburg and GA, had lined up for Pioneer. 
Edited by:
Neil Anderson, Managing Editor
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