French bank Natixis backs H20 arm's suspension of some funds

PARIS (Reuters) - French bank Natixis <CNAT.PA> said on Friday that it supported steps taken by its H20 Asset Management arm to temporarily suspend some of its funds, and that it would have no financial impact on Natixis.

H2O Asset Management said it had temporarily suspended eight of its funds for an estimated period of four weeks, with the aim of re-establishing liquidity for investors in the portion of the funds invested in liquid assets.

"The suspension of these funds has no financial impact on Natixis, either on the balance sheet or on the income statement," said Natixis in a statement.

The H20 arm has been hit over the last year by market volatility and clients withdrawing money. Natixis owns 50.01% of H20, which has around 21.7 billion euros (19.36 billion pounds) of assets under management, according to H20's website.

H20 said in a statement on its website that the suspension of those funds had followed a request by France's AMF financial market regulator.

It said AMF had asked for a suspension in subscriptions and redemptions on those funds due to uncertainties over the valuations on the major exposure of those funds to 'private', or certain unlisted, securities.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Chris Reese and Susan Fenton)