Ljubljana, 21 September (STA) - Alta, Slovenia's largest asset management group, has been sold for an estimated EUR 30m. The Austrian BKS bank purchased the brokerage business, while the funds management arm of insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav acquired the fund management subsidiary, the business daily Finance reported on Friday.
The deal will make BKS the biggest brokerage in Slovenia six months after it acquired another brokerage, Gorenjska borznoposredniška družba (GBP). Both deals still need to be approved by regulators.
It also signals the final stages of consolidation in the Slovenian asset management industry, which started with the financial crisis in 2009, when Alta was created with the merger of three brokerages to become the no. 3 player on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange (LJSE).
Since then it purchased additional brokerage and asset management businesses, mostly from banks, as well as investment funds, to become the largest financial group on the LJSE.
Finance says that the Slovenian brokerage and funds market is small, with few players and low trading volumes, whereas regulatory demands have been increasing the costs of doing business and of compliance.