Eric Kirsch says integrating fixed-income management, insurance advisory services, and client servicing under one umbrella within Deutsche Asset Management is his immediate task as the company's new global head of insurance asset management.
"We have a global footprint," said Mr. Kirsch. "Our opportunities are significant in the States, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Germany, and throughout Europe."
Ranked as the world's largest insurance asset manager, Mr. Kirsch's group plans to place more emphasis on alternative investment products, like hedge funds, that can satisfy insurers' demand for higher returns.
Deutsche Asset Management is the global asset management business of Deutsche Bank AG; it has $730 billion of assets under management, of which Mr. Kirsch's group manages $140 billion. It manages assets for clients that include foundations, nonprofit organizations, public and private retirement funds, high-net-worth individuals, and retail investors.
The insurance asset management group's institutional products include fixed-income management, real estate, and alternative investments including hedge funds.
Deutsche's hedge fund unit, DB Absolute Return Strategies, which is part of Mr. Kirsch's group, helps clients realize the potential value in hedge funds, he said. Since the mid-1990s, the unit has worked to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns from both single-manager and multimanager hedge funds.
It manages about $8.8 billion of hedge fund assets from offices in New York, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney, and Summit, N.J.
The real estate business offers core, value-enhanced, and high-yield property investments as well as investments in publicly traded real estate transactions. It has $57.6 billion of assets.
"Insurance companies use all of those investments," Mr. Kirsch said. "We are unique because we have staff that are insurance specialists. Our clients appreciate that they are different from a pension fund. They are regulated, and you need to understand the needs of an insurance client."
His group's clients range from companies with multibillions of dollars of assets to manage to those in the $100 million range, he said, "but there is a lot in the middle there. We have quite a few clients in the $200 to $500 million range." He declined to say how many companies his group works with.
"We want to increase" assets under management from the $140 billion being managed at Dec. 31, he said. "The insurance marketplace is growing in a variety of ways, and there are more opportunities for folks like us."
"Our traditional business is fixed-income management, where we have more assets and expertise … ," he said. "The other area for growth … is alternative products that are customized." Alternative products cater to insurance companies' desire for higher returns than they can get from traditional fixed-income investments, he said.
Mr. Kirsch's group is the largest third-party manager of insurance general account assets, according to a ranking last summer in Insurance Finance & Investment, an industry newsletter. Competitors, he said, include the BlackRock Inc. affiliate of PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and Conning Asset Management.
He joined Deutsche Bank in 1980 and most recently headed Deutsche Asset Management's fixed-income management team for New York and Boston; it was responsible for the insurance, stable-value, mutual fund, municipal, and cash management groups. He will retain this role until a successor is named.
Deutsche Bank also has announced the promotion of Axel Benkner to be the global head of retail at Deutsche Asset Management. He was the head of DWS Investments, the company's mutual fund business in Europe. In his new role, Mr. Benkner is to oversee all of Deutsche Asset Management's retail businesses, including DWS and Scudder Investments.
