Standard Life Aberdeen has become the latest investor to stake its claim on Impax Asset Management as majority shareholder BNP Paribas whittles down its holding in the business.
An RNS filing from last Friday evening shows the FTSE 100 firm initiated a 6.40% on 11 November, scooping up 8.4 million shares in the sustainable fund group.
Hours before it was revealed Liontrust had also bought an 8.1% stake or 10.5 million shares in Impax.
Both purchases came after BNP Paribas revealed its intentions to offload 10% of its issued share capital in Impax via a secondary placing last Tuesday. The following day the French private bank confirmed it had sold 13.7 million ordinary shares at a price of £5.10, taking its stake in the business down to 14%.
At close of play on Wednesday Impax shares were worth £5.20 a piece, valuing SLA’s stake at around £43.7m. But since then, the share price has spiked to £5.92, netting SLA an additional £6m.
Liontrust, which also initiated its position last Wednesday, will have raked in £7.6m since purchasing shares.
In addition to SLA and Liontrust, Impax is also owned by Marlborough and Janus Henderson, with the former holding between 2-3% of the stock in its Nano Cap Growth and UK Micro Cap Growth funds and the latter owning around 2% in its UK Smaller Companies and UK & Irish Smaller Companies funds, according to data from Trustnet.
The stock also features in the Downing Unique Opportunities fund (3.1%) launched this March and the Blackrock UK Smaller Companies fund (1.9%).
