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BOSTON-DWS Scudder plans to grow with the aging.
And in the race to capture its share of the billions of dollars pouring out of 401(k) and other retirement savings accounts, the U.S. mutual fund distribution channel of German giant Deutsche Bank believes structured products may be its secret weapon.
"These people have a lot of money, and they may feel somewhat uncertain about whether or not the portfolio they have is totally responding to their needs," said Philipp Hensler, managing director and head of distribution for the company. Structured products- derivative-oriented instruments designed to provide a degree of capital protection along with the promise for growth-address those concerns, he said.
For DWS Scudder, the strategy is to take the company's know-how from its successful structured products business in Europe and Asia, to show typically mutual-fund-focused American investors what they've been missing.
"We all know it's a distribution game out there," Hensler said during a presentation at Financial Research Corp.'s Annual Marketing Trends Conference here earlier this month. DWS Scudder now ranks 22nd in size among mutual fund complexes in the U.S. The goal is to become one of the top five, he said.
It's not going to be easy, said Andrew Clark, a senior analyst with New York-based Lipper. In Europe, where the market is more than triple that of the one here, structured products are sold everywhere from commercial banks to even postal stations.
The U.S. is different. "The culture...