Exclusive: Guernsey-based MitonOptimal acquires Jersey’s Orchard Wealth Mgm’t
MitonOptimal International, the Guernsey-based asset management group founded in 2002 by Scott Campbell, has acquired Jersey-based Orchard Wealth Management, International Investment can exclusively report.
The acquisition, which has already been given the go-ahead by the regulators, is the fifth in a series of acquisitions that began in 2016, and is expected to be “the last for at least a while”, according to Shaun McDade, managing director of MitonOptimal’s Guernsey office and head of the company’s international portfolio management operations.
It gives MitonOptimal a presence in all three UK Crown Dependency territories for the first time.
Under the deal, Orchard co-founder Richard Harwood, pictured left, will join the MitonOptimal Group board and will continue to manage the Orchard flagship global equity income fund, which will continue to be run out of Dublin, but which will be rebranded as a MitonOptimal entity, McDade said.
Harwood will also be in charge of heading up MitonOptimal’s new discretionary fund management operations in Jersey, in the facilities formerly occupied by Orchard, he added.
The cost of the acquisition and other financial details weren’t given. All the members of Orchard’s existing staff will become part of the MitonOptimal Jersey team, McDade said.
In other MitonOptimal news, the company formally announced the appointment of Donald Beggs as a portfolio manager to its Isle of Man-based operation. Beggs, who joined MitonOptimal towards the end of last year, comes to the company from an Isle of Man stock brokerage, the name of which wasn’t given.
As reported, MitonOptimal in January said it would acquire Central Investment Planning, a Midlands, UK-based, high-net-worth-client focused investment advisory business headed up by directors Sandy Baker and Fiona McCaig. This came weeks after it unveiled news of its acquisition of Isle of Man-based Blythe Financial Ltd, an investment advisory firm founded in 2002, which obtained an Isle of Man DFM licence in preparation for its joining the MitonOptimal business.
MitonOptimal’s acquisition spree began in 2016 when it surprised the market by announcing plans to buy Bath, England-based Coram Asset Management Ltd, which had been co-founded just the previous year by the late Martin Gray, a popular fund manager who had struck out on his own after having managed MitonOptimal’s Offshore Special Situations fund since December 2014. Coram then snapped up Minerva Fund Managers, a UK specialist discretionary fund manager, in 2017, while under the MitonOptimal ownership but still doing business as Coram.
Today, according to its website, MitonOptimal provides DFM, bespoke portfolio management, advisory services and multi-asset funds globally out of offices in Guernsey, South Africa, the UK, Singapore, the Isle of Man, and, as a result of its latest acquisition, will soon add to this list Jersey.
MitonOptimal International founder Campbell, pictured above left, who is the company’s managing director and chief investment officer, is originally from New Zealand. He began his career in financial services with the AMP Group New Zealand in 1989, then joined Appleton in 1996, and was appointed managing director of Appleton International London in 2000, before setting up what is now MitonOptimal Guernsey in 2002.
Below is a summary of the Orchard Wealth flagship fund’s performance and other key facts, which may also be found on the Orchard Wealth website. (The fund’s benchmark is 50% the MSCI World index in local currency, plus 50% of the three-month LIBOR rate, which is said to match the fund’s risk profile, which is to remain at less than 50% of the volatility of the MSCI World.)
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