M&G Investments, the asset management arm of Prudential, is to establish a Luxembourg-based Sicav fund range for European retail investors.
The firm has applied to Luxembourg regulator Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier and hopes its license will be granted before the end of the year.
Grant Speirs, M&G’s group finance director, said the move was “prudent” in light of the June 23 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union.
“A Luxembourg retail platform will enable us to offer fund strategies to European investors if the UK loses financial services passporting rights in several years’ time as a result of its exit from the EU,” he said.
The hub will be the second European distribution centre to be launched by M&G since the UK voted to secede from the EU. In the week after the referendum, the firm announced it would build a Dublin hub to market its products to European investors.
It is understood that M&G’s Luxembourg fund range will not replicate existing funds, and that the firm considers it too early to tell whether a dedicated staff will be created there. No funds currently domiciled in the UK or Ireland would be closed or moved as a result of the launch.
M&G Investments manages assets of £255 billion (€283.3 billion) as of June 30, 2016.
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