Aestrum Group

Aestrum Group, Inc. is a Caphirian multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Venceia. Aestrum is the largest bank in Caphiria - servicing approximately 10.73% of all Caphirian bank deposits, and the second-largest bank in the world by total assets, with total assets of $843 billion. It is also the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization.

The Aestrum Group was founded in 1709 as Argentaria Aestrum after obtaining a bank charter and was originally a wholesale bank, dealing with other prominent financial institutions and major corporate clients. The bank was also closely associated with and has financed the oil and defense industries, having longstanding connections to Great War-era companies. The modern era of Aestrum comes after the double-acquisition of Decani Bank and Feiro Financial in 1985. Under the name Aestrum Financial, the company subsequently filed for an IPO and went public on its 280th anniversary, 1 September 1989. Following a period of rapid growth and expansion, Aestrum Financial merged all of its operating subsidiaries together and underwent a large-scale restructuring in 2002 and rebranded to simply Aestrum, Inc. The current iteration of the company was formed after Aestrum was investigated by the Ministry of Justice and was forced to pay $25 billion to settle investigations into its business practices pertaining to mortgage-backed securities. In order to recover from the financial blow, Aestrum raised $57.2 billion in a stock and asset sale, which funded the acquisition of 17 fintech companies over an eleven month period - an acquisition record. The company underwent another large restructuring and subtly rebranded to Aestrum Group, Inc. in 2009.

Aestrum Group is organized into four operating divisions, each with its own bank charter: Consumer & Retail Banking (Aestrum Bank) which is used for consumer credit card services and retail banking activities, and commercial banking; Private & Commercial Banking (Aperio Banking) which is its private banking and private wealth management firm; Corporate & Investment Banking (CIB Aestrum) which is the investment banking, asset management, treasury services, and corporate finance firm; and Asset & Wealth Management (Carbo AWM) which is its private equity and alternative asset management firm, which offers brokerage services, variable and fixed annuities, educational account services, financial planning, asset management, and trust services. Its investment banking operations often command substantial deal flow and maintain different "sell side" and "buy side" departments.

As of 2037, the asset management arm of the bank has $91 billion in assets under management, while its investment and corporate bank arm holds $1.327 trillion in assets under custody. At $64.2 billion in assets under management, the hedge fund unit of the Aestrum Group is one of the largest hedge funds in the world.