Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Targets India, Asia Asset Management Deals

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc.’s trust banking arm aims to sign investment agreements within a year with one to two asset management firms in South and Southeast Asia to keep pace with growth in the regions.

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corp., a unit of Japan’s biggest bank by market value, has started searching for investment targets and plans to spend “several” billion yen on each deal, President Kinya Okauchi said.

The trust bank is expanding outside of Japan as domestic demand wanes and it competes with domestic rival Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co., Okauchi, 59, said. In 2008 he acquired a stake in Aberdeen Asset Management Plc, the U.K.’s biggest independent fund manager.

“India, of course, and Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are the countries we are interested in for our investment,” Okauchi said in an interview in Tokyo on Dec. 15.

Sumitomo Trust’s Nikko Asset Management Co. unit agreed this month to buy DBS Asset Management from DBS Group Holdings Ltd. to capitalize on growing demand from wealthy Asian clients. Tokyo-based Sumitomo Trust is set to merge with Chuo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc. to create Japan’s fifth-biggest lender.

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust in 2008 took a 9.9 percent stake in Scotland-based Aberdeen and expanded its shareholding to 16 percent currently. Under the contract, the Japanese company has an option to further boost its stake to as much as 19.9 percent, Okauchi said.

Chief Executive Officer Martin Gilbert expanded Aberdeen’s assets under management 22 percent to 178.7 billion pounds ($282 billion) in the year ended Sept. 30, helped by the acquisition of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc’s fund-management business in January, according to a Nov. 30 financial statement.

Aberdeen held 40 percent of the assets in equities, 25 percent in fixed income, 16 percent in alternative investments and 12 percent in property, the statement said.