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DWS CEO Hoops Blames Himself for Slow Growth in Private Credit

Stefan Hoops. (Alex Kraus/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- DWS Group Chief Executive Officer Stefan Hoops said he alone is to blame for the slow growth in the asset manager’s private credit business.

In the role since 2022, Hoops had highlighted private credit as a future growth engine for DWS shortly after taking over. But the unit has been struggling to attract investors for a fund targeting €1 billion ($1 billion) and some senior sales staff have been heading to the exit, Bloomberg News reported last week. 

Responding to a question by an analyst while presenting fourth-quarter earnings, Hoops said the lackluster performance reflects “not very good work” on his part. 

“What I haven’t done — and I should have done it, I was just unfortunately busy on many other things — was to agree an origination partnership” with DWS parent Deutsche Bank AG, he said. 

Various such agreements with some senior executives at Germany’s largest lender “are close,” he said, identifying by name the co-heads of the investment bank, Ram Nayak and Mark Fedorcik, as well as the head of the corporate bank, David Lynne. 

The market for private credit is “moving from direct lending to more asset-based finance,” Hoops said. That “makes our potential collaboration with Deutsche Bank even more appealing” given the “vast origination channels” offered by Deutsche Bank’s corporate bank and investment bank divisions, he said.

DWS earlier on Thursday reported net inflows of €18.4 billion across the business in the fourth quarter, pushing assets under management to a record €1 trillion. Its share price rose as much as 6.5%, hitting the highest level since it went public almost seven years ago.

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