By Elena Vardon


Italy's Generali and the owner of France's Natixis Investment Managers agreed to jointly create an European asset manager overlooking 1.9 trillion euros ($1.979 trillion).

The Italian insurer and French retail bank Groupe BPCE signed a preliminary deal underpinned by 15-year contracts to form a new entity in which they will each own a 50% of the business, they said in a joint statement Tuesday.

The joint venture will be headed by the chief executive of Generali's investment division Woody Bradford while Natixis's chair and BPCE CEO Nicolas Namias will take the chairman role.

"The joint venture would result from the contribution of assets and activities valued at approximately 9.5 billion euros in total," they said.

The tie-up is set to close by early 2026, subject to approvals.


Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

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