The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has approved BlackRock’s acquisition of Credit Suisse’s exchange traded funds (ETF) business, after the trade body delayed the approval for 10 working days, something it stated was standard practice.
A spokesperson for BlackRock said: ‘Following today’s decision, we are on track to complete on or around the 1 July. The deal significantly extends BlackRock’s footprint in Switzerland and will offer local investors an expanded range of iShares ETFs."
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BlackRock reached an agreement to buy Credit Suisse’s US$17.6 billion range of exchange traded funds in January this year. The deal was in line with the Swiss bank’s divestment strategy.
Martin Keller, Credit Suisse’s head of distribution for core investments, had said, "Credit Suisse will remain a large investor of ETFs through our private banking and wealth management division and will partner closely with BlackRock to broaden the ETF product offering for our clients. We believe that BlackRock is well positioned to realise the long-term value of our ETF business."
BlackRock is the largest ETF provider in Europe, with 202 European iShares ETFs representing US$139.6 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of 31 December.
Credit Suisse, currently, is undertaking a divestment strategy and the deal will see it transfer around 58 funds with an AUM of approximately CHF16 billion to iShares.
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