Internet financial services firm Egg, a unit of Prudential Corporation, has forged an alliance with Microsoft to distribute some of its products to consumers across Europe via the MSN website.
The partnership will initially involve a ‘fund supermarket’ – a sales outlet for a wide variety of funds from a range of asset managers – for UK consumers, while Egg hopes the alliance will later expand to offer such services in France and Germany.
Egg chief executive Paul Gratton revealed that the firm is negotiating with retailers about further alliances, stressing that international expansion would come through partnerships, not acquisitions.
However, Egg is entering an extremely crowded marketplace – over one hundred European fund supermarkets have been launched in recent years.
News source: Wall Street Journal
