RBC has agreed to buy fixed-income fund manager BlueBay Asset Management PLC for £963 million ($1.54 billion), giving the Canadian bank more products to push through its wealth-management business.  London-based Blue Bay, with over $34 billion under management, focuses on fixed-income investments and derivatives for institutional and wealthy individual clients.  Branches are located in Stamford, CT, and Tokyo. 

Currently, there's a broad consolidation in the global asset-management industry, as independent managers look to tap bigger partners' sales channels, and banks either are unloading or beefing up their A/M arms, depending on how much capital they have.  Last week, Europe's largest hedge-fund group, Man Group, completed a $1.8 billion purchase of smaller rival GLG Partners.

Royal Bank of Canada apparently has been steadily building its U.K. business, particularly in wealth management where it hopes to replicate its success in Canada in winning business from ultra-wealthy private investors.  Last month, George Lewis, group head of RBC Wealth Management, said the U.K. "is rapidly becoming our 3rd home market - between Canada and the U.S.," as the bank created a stand-alone U.K. unit within RBC Wealth.

RBC Global Asset Management, which falls within the Wealth business, has more than 200 billion Canadian dollars ($197.64 billion) in assets under management, while the overall Wealth unit manages about 250 billion Canadian dollars.   [WSJournal, NYT Dealbook, 10/18]