Deutsche Bank’s DWS IPO in stock market debut

Ralph Orlowski | Reuters

The new logo of Deutsche Bank’s DWS Asset Management is pictured at their headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 19, 2018.

The asset management division of Germany’s largest bank will begin trading on the country’s stock exchange on Friday.

Deutsche Bank priced the initial public offering (IPO) of its asset management arm, DWS, at 32.50 euros ($40.12) a share. This is slightly below the mid-point of its initial target range of between 30 to 36 euros a share, according to a company statement released late Thursday.

Deutsche Bank will sell 22.5 percent of the company, which has assets worth more than 700 billion euros under management. The IPO is expected to generate proceeds of about 1.4 billion euros for the bank.

In making its stock market debut on Friday, DWS is then reportedly expected to boast a market capitalization of around 6.5 billion euros. Deutsche Bank is thought to be holding onto approximately 80 percent of its asset management division, with Japan’s Nippon Life poised to acquire 5 percent of the stake and France’s Tikehau Capital set to purchase almost 4 percent of the company.

Deutsche Bank is in the midst of an ongoing restructuring program and the listing of DWS marks a key milestone for CEO John Cryan. However, a string of bad news has seen the embattled lender’s share price fall nearly 25 percent since last January.

The IPO of DWS marks one of Germany’s biggest listings in recent years and follows hot on the heels of Siemens Healthineers’ stock market debut last week.

Meanwhile, several large German IPOs are pending, with SpringerNature, HSE24 and Godewind all scheduled to list over the coming weeks.