Aberdeen Asset Management is buying Flag Capital Management, an alternatives manager in the US.
The deal will add $6.3bn of assets to Aberdeen’s books, taking its total alternative assets platform, overseen by Andrew McCaffery, to $21.3bn.
Aberdeen said the deal, due in the third quarter of this year, increases its exposure to the US and adds family offices, endowments and public and corporate pension plans.
McCaffery, global head of alternatives, said Flag Capital has a “great client base” of “mainly institutional investors” in the US.
Flag, founded in 1994, has ”considerable experience of natural resources and agriculture investing”, McCaffery said, “complementary to Aberdeen’s property multi-manager business and direct infrastructure business”.
”We will look to build upon the combined expertise to deliver a complete Real Asset offering to investors across the globe,” he said.
Flag, which has an office in Hong Kong as well as in Boston and Stamford, manages $6.3bn of invested and committed capital and has focused on venture capital, small and mid-cap private equity, and real assets in the US, as well as private equity in the Asia-Pacific region. Flag bought Hong Kong asset manager Squadron Capital Management in 2012.
In late 2013, Aberdeen agreed to buy Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in a £550m (€657m) deal that took its real estate business to around £23.5bn from £16bn and resulting in property accounting for 7% of the combined firm’s assets of £336bn.
