Martin Currie buys London-based Japan equity boutique
Martin Currie said it has completed the acquisition of the business assets and investment management team of PK Investment Management, the London based long/short Japan equity boutique.
The purchase price and other details of the deal weren’t given.
News of the acquisition’s completion comes around six weeks after Martin Currie announced that Paul Kirkby, pictured, chief executive and founder of PK Investment, and PK’s investment team were joining Martin Currie, with acquisition of PK’s “existing, Cayman domiciled, $167m (€155m) RIT PK Japan Fund” pending, subject to regulatory approval.
This means that Martin Currie’s Japan equities team, now led by Kirkby and including Martin Currie manager Claire Marwick, is overseeing total assets under management of around $425m, the company said in a statement.
Kirkby has also been appointed as lead manager of the Legg Mason Japan Absolute Alpha Fund, a Luxembourg-domiciled UCITS fund, Martin Currie said. Martin Currie, which is based in Edinburgh, was acquired by US asset manager Legg Mason in 2014.
Martin Currie head of sales and marketing Andy Sowerby said the acquisition of PK Investment Management was an “exciting milestone” in the development of Martin Currie’s Japanese long/short capability.
Kirkby founded PK Investment Management in 2002, a year after quitting GAM, where he managed long-only and long/short Japanese equities funds for 16 years, and where in 1997 he helped to launch the firm’s first UK open-ended investment company. In 2012 PK Investment terminated all of its investment management agreements for about a year, to enable Kirkby to attend to a family illness, and the investment boutique was re-launched in February 2014.
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