Guggenheim said to weigh bid for Deutsche Bank's fund biz

Guggenheim Partners LLC is among the companies preparing to bid for Deutsche Bank AG's asset-management divisions ahead of a deadline this week, said a person with knowledge of the matter. The fund manager may get competition from Power Corp. of Canada, Macquarie Group Ltd., State Street Corp., Ameriprise Financial Inc., and Apax Partners LLP, which have been studying bids for some or all of the business, said people with knowledge of the talks, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. JPMorgan Chase & Co., which had earlier shown interest in parts of the unit, is no longer in talks, the people said. Deutsche Bank, the biggest in Germany by assets, said in November it was reviewing its global money-management business except for the European and Asian mutual-fund divisions. The parts for sale, including institutional fund management, a real estate investment unit and U.S. mutual funds, comprise about 400 billion euros ($525 billion) of assets under management, people with knowledge of the effort said last month. Michelle Lee, a spokeswoman for Guggenheim, declined to comment, as did Klaus Winker, a spokesman for Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank. Representatives of Sydney's Macquarie, JPMorgan in New York, Boston's State Street, and Power Corp. in Montreal, also declined to comment. Todd Fogarty, a spokesman for London- based Apax at Kekst & Co., said he couldn't immediately comment. Ben Pratt, a spokesman for Minneapolis-based Ameriprise, didn't immediately return a call. Guggenheim, founded in 2000 with backing from the Guggenheim family, is based in Chicago and New York and manages more than $125 billion of assets, according to its website. --Bloomberg News--