The Bank of New York Mellon has agreed to acquire Insight Investment Management from Lloyds Banking Group for GBP235m.
The Bank of New York Mellon has agreed to acquire Insight Investment Management from Lloyds Banking Group for GBP235m.
Based in London, Insight Investment specialises in liability driven investment solutions, active fixed income and alternatives. Its clients include some of the UK’s largest pension schemes, corporates, insurance companies and local authorities, along with a growing number of non-UK clients and financial services and intermediary companies.
Insight Investment’s assets under management, net of identified internal assets that will be retained by another part of the Lloyds Banking Group, are approximately GBP80bn.
Insight Investment will join the other investment boutiques at BNY Mellon Asset Management. With this acquisition, The Bank of New York Mellon will have more than USD1trn in assets under management. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Ronald P. O’Hanley (pictured), president and chief executive officer of BNY Mellon Asset Management, says: "Two equity downturns in ten years and rapidly growing liabilities have left many retirement plans at a crisis level and have created an urgent need to overhaul many aspects of the current funding system. LDI is a critical tool for meeting the needs of current and future retirees, while improving the stability of plan sponsors. Moreover, LDI has great potential to assist life insurance companies with similar liability issues. Thus, we look forward to Insight Investment offering our clients access to sophisticated investment solutions and expertise.
"Not only is this acquisition financially compelling from our shareholders’ perspective, but it deepens our global capabilities and is consistent with our ongoing strategy to create broad-based solutions for our clients and address key issues facing the investment industry."
Founded in 2002, Insight Investment has delivered year on year organic growth in assets under management. Through the development of its specialist investment capabilities, Insight Investment is now the third largest manager of UK pension funds. Despite a difficult market environment in 2008, Insight Investment was the fastest growing UK institutional asset manager with strong growth in assets under management, revenue and profitability. In 2009, Insight Investment has expanded its external client franchise through net sales in LDI solutions and sustained growth in fixed income, absolute return and liquidity strategies.
Abdallah Nauphal, chief executive and chief investment officer of Insight Investment, says: "Insight Investment has grown its business by focusing on our clients and developing solutions that are tailored to our clients needs. I believe that Insight’s innovative culture and business philosophy fits very well with BNY Mellon Asset Management. Their multi-boutique approach to asset management offers us the attractive combination of continued autonomy, together with the backing of a very strong Aaa/AA-rated global financial institution, for which asset management is a core strategic priority. I am delighted that we have achieved this very positive outcome for clients of Insight. We are confident that we can realise Insight’s full potential by partnering with BNY Mellon Asset Management."
