Harald Quandt is one of the largest privately owned asset managers.
(Photo: HQ Holding)
Frankfurt The HQ Holding of the Harald Quandt family wants to open its financial service providers to investments by external donors. That means a turning point in the Taunus town of Bad Homburg, from where the Quandt empire is governed in financial matters.
So far, discussions with potential investors have been about minority packages at the asset manager HQ Asset Management and the alternative investment manager HQ Capital, which are grouped under the umbrella of HQ Holding.
Stefan Keitel, CEO of HQ Holding, told the Handelsblatt: “We can imagine entering into strategic partnerships in order to accelerate and sustainably support our growth. This can also go hand in hand with a stake in individual financial service providers. “
From the beginning, HQ Asset Management had the problem of insufficient start-up capital in the products. “In order to be able to address a larger group of institutional investors, we need more product diversification and start-up capital,” explains Harald Quandt’s head of asset management for the multi-billion dollar branch of the family.
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HQ Asset Management, for example, has two funds on offer, both of which, according to industry experts, are not large enough for many institutional addresses. The HQ AM European Equities works in the analysis with artificial intelligence and most recently managed a good 50 million euros, the HQ AM Global Equities DM4EM, which bridges the gap between industrialized and emerging countries, even managed just under 24 million euros. For many professional investors in pension funds, insurance companies and pension funds, investments are only interesting from fund sizes of 100 million euros.
In a very crucial phase
“Ideally, the new partner will bring start-up capital for the funds and at the same time make their sales force available. This can also be linked to participation. In the end, that depends on the overall package. We are currently in a very decisive phase, ”says Keitel, who was Chairman of the Board of Management of Deka Investment and its chief investment strategist before moving to Quandts.
In financial circles it is said that a participation in the parent company HQ Holding is also conceivable. HQ Trust, the family office of the Harald Quandt family, is reportedly not part of the negotiating table.
Harald Quandt and his brother Herbert inherited numerous company holdings from the family patriarch Günther Quandt in 1954 and invested in companies together. After Harald Quandt’s death at the beginning of the 1970s, the assets were gradually unbundled. The stake in BMW was taken over by his brother Herbert, who bequeathed the shares to his youngest children, Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten.
Result of the generation change
In the other branch of the family, Harald’s daughter Gabriele Quandt increased her fortune not with stocks and bonds, but with entrepreneurial investments. The investment strategy is represented by HQ Capital, which is to become a “powerhouse” for private equity.
The opening up to external investors is also a result of the generational change in the family lines of the Harald Quandt dynasty. “In the past, the family provided the capital for the products and daughters, but that is gradually changing,” says an insider.
Keitel outlines the requirements as follows: “What is important for us is the partner’s DNA, their reputation must match us. And he has to guarantee our independence and exclusivity for the customer. It would be absolutely unacceptable for us to lose our independence in a large corporation. “
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