Deutsche Bank AG (DB) said Tuesday it has entered exclusive negotiations with financial services firm Guggenheim Partners on the sale of its asset-management operations that it put under strategic review in November 2011, in a deal that could be worth around EUR2 billion.

Guggenheim Partners, which has expertise in institutional asset management for the insurance and pension sector, as well as a range of mutual funds, is interested in acquiring all of the operations available, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A price wasn't disclosed and a deal still might not happen, said people familiar with the matter. The business up for sale includes roughly EUR400 billion ($537 billion) of assets under management. Deutsche has been shopping it around since November and had whittled down the field of buyers to a handful.

Analysts have estimated the business up for sale could be valued at between EUR1.5 billion and EUR2.5 billion. A deal could be signed within the first quarter, Dow Jones Newswires reported earlier.

Deutsche Bank's asset management division is split into four business lines: DWS, Deutsche Insurance Asset Management, institutional advisory business DB Advisor and the alternative investment operations, RREEF.

In November, the bank said it was "conducting a strategic review" of its global asset-management division--excluding the retail DWS franchise in Germany, Europe and Asia--and would focus on how recent regulatory changes and associated costs and changes in the industry are affecting the business and its growth prospects.

Rumors about Deutsche's plans have swirled for months. Dow Jones Newswires reported earlier this month that the potential buyers included State Street Corp. (STT), Macquarie Group Ltd. (MQG.AU), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s (JPM) asset management business and Apax Partners.

Guggenheim is a New York- and Chicago-based investment bank led by Mark Walter as chief executive and Alan Schwartz, a former CEO of Bear Stearns Cos., as executive chairman. It has been expanding recently, starting a proprietary trading business last year.

Last year, it organized its asset-management operations into a new unit, Guggenheim Investments, which has $125 billion of assets, including $20 billion of ETFs.

In a statement Tuesday, a Guggenheim spokesman said the firm "regularly evaluates opportunities to strengthen and enhance its business platform and client offering, and has a strong track record in managing clients' assets. We are pleased to enter into exclusive negotiations with Deutsche Bank and believe its asset management businesses represent an attractive opportunity for Guggenheim to leverage our expertise."

Analysts have said that Deutsche Bank never reached an economy of scale to make it worth keeping the business, adding that selling the unit will help the bank improve its capital ratios in a time when banks globally are looking to boost balance sheets under new, stricter requirements.

-By Eyk Henning and Liz Moyer, Dow Jones Newswires, 49 69 29 725 108; eyk.henning@dowjones.com

--Mike Foster of Financial News contributed to the article.

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