The acquisition of the London-based investment manager that focuses primarily on closed ended funds, follows hard on the heels of three other bolt-on deals with alternatives managers: hedge fund manager Arden Asset Management in August, private markets management business, FLAG Capital, in May, and SVG Capital’s stake in joint venture Aberdeen SVG Private Equity Managers in March.
These acquisitions were book-ended by the larger acquisitions of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership which closed in April 2014 and, most recently, August’s acquisition of discretionary management and platform business Parmenion.
The deal with AEC adds four new investment professionals to Aberdeen’s London Alternatives business which is led by Andrew McCaffery and grows Aberdeen’s suite of closed-ended funds to 33, with over £8.5bn in aggregate AUM.
Aberdeen added that, by folding AEC into the firm’s broader alternatives capability will also allow the group to expand AEC’s range of closed and open end, fund-of-fund vehicles across a wider range of additional strategies within the fund-of-closed-end-funds sector.
And, Aberdeen said: “The team will be independent of Aberdeen’s direct equity and fixed income teams. In line with Aberdeen’s fee policy, the AEC funds will not be double-charged on any Aberdeen funds held in the portfolios.”
As of 30 June 2015, AEC had £409m under management across a range of investment funds, Aberdeen said. The two largest vehicles managed by the team are Advance Developing Markets Fund Limited and Advance Frontier Markets Fund Limited, both of which are closed-ended.
