The great unwind of Commonwealth Bank's calamitous wealth management empire is set to accelerate this year with the offload of the group's global asset management division.The bank yesterday announced that it would pursue an initial public offering of the business on the Australian Securities Exchange before the end of the year.CBA is exiting wealth management activities amid reputational fallout from a chain of controversies involving inappropriate advice, defective product design and financial exploitation of clients.In September last year the bank entered a binding agreement to sell its life insurance operations in Australia and New Zealand to AIA Group for A$3.8 billion.The planned float of the asset management arm, known internally as Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM), is expected to garner proceeds of more than $4 billion from the IPO, given its scale in the Australian and Kiwi markets.CLSA bank analyst Brian Johnson said the division would fetch a price tag in the order of 15 times earnings or higher.CFSGAM is believed to have generated earnings of around $250 million in 2017 on revenue of $837 million.Based on these metrics CBA could raise up to $5 billion through the IPO, although it might have to lower its expectations given that the business has lost momentum in the last year.Revenue in 2017 declined by 1 per cent as movements in the Australian dollar and a change in the investment mix of the domestic funds management business eroded margins.Moreover, in the six months to the end of December CSFGAM's funds under management remained at $219 billion despite robust equity markets during the period.Proceeds from the sales of the insurance and asset management arms will add more than 1.5 per cent to CBA's Tier One capital base, but a large share of the proceeds are likely to be used to fund customer remediations stemming from the bank's wealth management scandals and looming big payouts to regulators and civil litigants to cover other misdemeanours.The first set of penalties against the bank is likely to be announced next month when the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority publishes the findings of its investigation into governance and risk management failures at the bank.CBA's decision to jettison the asset management operation comes ahead of today's hearings of the Hayne Royal Commission where the bank's practice of charging financial advice clients fees for no service will take centre stage.One of the big questions being asked by institutional investors is why banks such as CBA always believed they could overcome the conflicts of interest they created when they acquired big wealth management businesses such as Colonial.CLSA's Johnson said he expected other Australian banks to announce further sales of wealth management assets over the next year."Banks are not the natural owners of these assets," he said."Moreover, staff increasingly want to have direct equity in the funds management businesses they work for."Commentary such as Johnson's is casting doubt on the wisdom of strategic decisions taken by previous CEOs of the major banks to spend billions buying into wealth management.David Murray, the former