Mizuho and MUFG Hunt Overseas Asset Managers to Bolster Global Funds Business

Japanese banking giants Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said they are actively scouting acquisitions or partnership opportunities with foreign asset managers, underscoring a renewed push by the country’s lenders to expand fee-based revenue outside their shrinking home market. Mizuho is prioritising a tie-up with a private-asset specialist in Europe or the United States to gain exposure to growth areas such as private credit and infrastructure financing, according to Oleg Kapinos, head of global distribution strategy at the bank’s investment arm AM One. MUFG’s asset-management division, which oversees ¥120.7 trillion ($818 billion), is likewise seeking "attractive non-organic growth opportunities" in the same regions to accelerate its transition into a more global business, Duncan Gardiner, head of client relations in London, said. The two lenders collectively manage roughly $1.3 trillion through their asset-management units, most of it for Japanese clients. Strong overseas expansion has become a priority for Japan’s financial groups as they grapple with an ageing population and slow economic growth at home, while regulators promote the country as an international asset-management hub. Mizuho and MUFG join peers such as Nomura Holdings, which in April paid $1.8 billion for Macquarie Group’s U.S. and European public-asset businesses, as well as insurers Dai-ichi Life and Meiji Yasuda, in seeking scale abroad. Both banks declined to say whether substantive talks with targets are under way, and cautioned that no transactions are guaranteed in a competitive market where prized independent managers draw interest from global heavyweights like BlackRock.