DWS renames itself: Return to Deutsche Asset Management

The fund company changes its brand name to Deutsche Asset Management. The aim is to better reach international customers worldwide.

Frankfurt. The fund company DWS will in future be called Deutsche Asset Management again. The name will be introduced as a new global brand identity from November, the Deutsche Bank subsidiary announced on Tuesday morning.

The new brand name is intended to support the company's positioning among investors worldwide, explained DWS. It also underlines the group's origins and expresses the fund provider's global growth ambitions.

According to the company, the official name of the parent company, DWS Group GmbH & Co. KGaA, will remain the same “for the time being”. A corresponding change of name would require approval at the general meeting. It is not clear from the statement whether the fund company is seeking such a step.

The brand name is not entirely new for DWS: Deutsche Bank's asset management division only renamed itself from Deutsche Asset Management to DWS before its IPO in 2018.

At the end of June, DWS managed almost 1.2 trillion euros. Deutsche Bank holds around 80 percent of the company, which is listed in the German small cap index MDax. The Bloomberg news agency had already reported on corresponding plans at the beginning of July.

The new brand name is likely to be aimed primarily at institutional customers worldwide. “Our ambitions are international,” said DWS boss Stefan Hoops. This requires more presence with institutional customers and greater visibility in regions outside of Germany and Europe. The intention to switch to Deutsche Asset Management is “a further step” in this regard.

While DWS's assets under management in the private customer segment have recently grown significantly, investor money in the institutional business has hardly increased in the past one and a half years. At the beginning of the year, the fund provider had already reorganized its own sales structure.

The name Deutsche Asset Management will now replace the DWS brand both at group level and in institutional business. In the area of ​​active management, however, the previous name should be supplemented with a corresponding addition. The existing product and fund names remain unchanged.