UniCredit's long-planned, complicated, global Pioneer Investments [profile] deal has been taken off the table. And the bank's leadership has not yet decided what's next. [See MFWire's living timeline of the Pioneer auction for more details and history.]

Jean Pierre Mustier UniCredit CEO

The multinational Italian bank confirms "that it has agreed ... to terminate" the multi-part deal it officially unveiled in April 2015 and then signed in November 2015 with Santander and a pair of private equity shops . The collapse of the deal follows months of speculation that a host of factors, including the Brexit vote and a UniCredit leadership change, were jeopardizing the deal.

MarketWatch, P&I, and Reuters all covered the ending of the deal talks.

Looking ahead, UniCredit is leaving other M&A options on the table when it comes to Pioneer. Earlier this month UniCredit's board approved a company-wide strategic review led by new UniCredit CEO Jean Pierre Mustier.

"Pioneer will now be included in the scope of the strategic review to explore the best alternatives for all Pioneer stakeholders including a potential IPO," UniCredit's statement reads.

Pioneer had $245 billion in AUM worldwide as of June 30 and more than 2,000 employees. In the U.S. alone, Pioneer had $67.2 billion in AUM as of March 31, and as of April 30 it has 519 employees in the U.S.

The collapsed UniCredit/Santander/private-equity deal, which has reportedly been brewing for two years, would've shifted Pioneer's Boston-based U.S. arm (led by Pioneer U.S. president and CEO Lisa Jones) under a new holding company, also called Pioneer Investments. That holding company would've still been half-owned by UniCredit, and the other half would've been owned by private equity giants General Atlantic and Warburg Pincus.

Meanwhile, outside the U.S., Santander and UniCredit would've combined their asset management businesses, with that same UniCredit- and private equity-backed holding company owning two-thirds of the combined international asset manager and Santander owning the other third. (General Atlantic and Warburg Pincus had already bought a 50-percent stake in Santander's asset management arm.) 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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