Ryan Hughes, head of investment research at AJ Bell, comments on the announcement that Liontrust Asset Management is to acquire Majedie Asset Management:
“The continued march of consolidation within asset managers shows no sign of abating with Liontrust announcing its purchase of Majedie. Liontrust have been hugely acquisitive in the past couple of years and this purchase adds another £5.8bn to their ever-growing assets under management and takes them through the £40bn mark. The purchase of Majedie is a surprise as it was not a name regularly touted as a takeover target given its owner managed structure and strong independence but the ability to tap into Liontrust’s wider resource and hopefully grow the assets was clearly a strong pull. For Liontrust, gaining a stronger footprint in the institutional market would have been a key attraction given it has historically mainly been a retail brand.
“Liontrust has proven to have an excellent ability to integrate purchases into their existing structure with the process well refined have integrated Neptune and Architas in the past two years. The fund ranges of the two companies look a decent fit, however there is the chance of some consolidation of the enlarged fund range, not least because Liontrust will have 19 funds that each have less than £100m in assets as they still look to tidy up the assets from their previous purchases. For investors in Majedie funds, this deal doesn’t look like it needs to give any immediate cause for concern as all of the fund managers are moving across and continue to manage the same funds. Whether that remains the case further down the line remains to be seen, but for now, continuity is the order of the day.”
