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Union Investment headquarters in Frankfurt
Photo: Arne Dedert / picture alliance / dpa
Scandal at Union Investment: The subsidiary of the German Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken has released one of its top fund managers with immediate effect because he is said to have enriched himself to a large extent with stock transactions over a longer period of time.
The manager, whose name is known to SPIEGEL, was considered by Germany's professional investors to be one of the biggest fans of the now insolvent financial services provider Wirecard.
It is unclear whether he has also enriched himself with Wirecard shares.
A spokesman for the company confirmed that his workplace at Union Investment headquarters had been searched by the public prosecutor.
At first, no one could be reached at the public prosecutor's office.
As Union Investment also reported to SPIEGEL, the employee is said to have "for a few months dealt with prohibited insider trading in private custody accounts outside the company's systems and thus unlawfully enriched himself to a considerable extent".
He said he had "misused business knowledge in order to conduct insider trading in private custody accounts beyond the Union Investment systems".
The public prosecutor's office had been provided with the necessary documents and data.
Neither customers nor Union Investment's special assets were harmed.
The investigations, according to Union Investment, showed "that the security systems in the square, custodian banks, financial supervisory authorities Bafin, investigative authorities, investment companies are working and have taken effect".
Too good for a management job
According to SPIEGEL information, the well-off family man was internally a star.
The performance of his funds was so outstanding that the man was not able to jump into the management team - he was too important for the Union funds for that.
Now the career has stopped abruptly.
Union Investment, like many German fund companies, and at the insistence of the now released employee, invested huge amounts in Wirecard shares last year.
According to an overview in the Finanzszene.de newsletter, Union Investment increased the number of Wirecard shares in 14 retail funds from almost 500,000 to 2.7 million between March and September 2019.
In January 2020, Union was one of the largest Wirecard shareholders with more than three percent.
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