Bank of New York Mellon Corp , the world's largest custodian of financial assets, said it agreed to acquire Germany's BHF Asset Servicing GmbH for $343 million.

The acquisition follows BNY Mellon's purchase of PNC Financial Services Group's

fund services unit a month ago and is part of the company's effort to expand its market share globally this year, according to an executive.

As a result of this deal, BNY Mellon will rank second in fund administration in Germany, said Jim Palermo, chief executive of BNY Mellon's asset servicing business. The combined German business will have $642 billion in assets under custody. Before, BNY Mellon was not one of the top five fund administrators in Germany, Palermo said.

The German fund market, the third largest in Europe, is a very important and strategic market for us, he said.

BNY Mellon is also looking to expand in China, Australia, the Middle East and Latin America, Palermo said.

BNY Mellon said the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, will immediately add to its GAAP earnings per share.

The deal is expected to be funded internally and includes the purchase of BHF Asset Servicing unit Frankfurter Service Kapitalanlage-Gesellschaft mbH (FSKAG), BNY Mellon said in a statement.

Both BHF Asset Servicing and FSKAG will become a part of the company's asset servicing business, the company said.

BNY Mellon in February acquired PNC's investment servicing unit for about $2.31 billion. That deal added $855 billion to the New York-based company's assets under administration.

Shares of BNY Mellon were down 1.2 percent at $29.34 at midday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay in New York and Amulya Nagaraj in Bangalore; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter and Steve Orlofsky)

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