Investment

Private equity pursues investment advisers for returns and fresh capital – Financial Times

Published

3 years ago

December 11, 2021

Private equity firms, among the world’s largest custodians of institutional money, have been buying up companies that advise individuals on their wealth.

The number of private equity deals for registered investment advisers has surged to a record 223 so far in 2021, according to data from investment bank Echelon Partners. The sum is up almost two-thirds from 2020 and more than three times the number of deals five years ago.

The latest came this month, when Apollo agreed to buy the US wealth distribution and asset management arm of Los Angeles-based Griffin Capital, which has more than $5bn in actively managed closed-end funds, including a credit and real estate fund and dozens of staff who distribute investment strategies.

Other private equity firms such as KKR, Hellman & Friedman and TA Associates have been acquiring investment adviser groups.

Wealth management typically has a high degree of recurring revenue, with customer “stickiness” that’s similar to a software company, said Daniel Seivert, chief executive of Echelon Partners.

And in September, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s asset management committee recommended allowing retail investors to invest in private fund strategies, Seivert said — potentially enabling wealth management clients to invest with the firms that back their advisers.

In the Griffin deal, Apollo will not only pick up an asset management company that it can scale, but Griffin also distributes funds to registered investment advisers and brokers, who are a potentially huge new source of private equity assets.

Apollo wants to raise at least $50bn in capital from individual investors within the next five years, the firm said in a presentation in October. This segment accounted for 5 per cent of the capital that Apollo raised on average between 2018 to 2020, and the firm hopes to grow that to at least 30 per cent, Stephanie Drescher, Apollo’s chief client and product development officer, said during the presentation.

“Scaling global wealth is our key bet,” she said. “It’s a market that is two times the size of the institutional market, yet they’re under-allocated by two-to-five times to alternatives.”

Private equity firms are targeting the wealth management industry in part because technology has made it easier for individual investors to access “alternatives,” or more specialised investments than ordinary stock and bond markets.

“Private equity sponsors continue to recognise that solutions exist to help capture what has evolved from a more fractured and less transparent marketplace to one that can deliver more value across broader investor segments,” said Georges Archibald, head of the Americas for financial services provider Apex Group.

Other wealth management deals by private equity this year have included TA Associates’ investment in the advisory group Caprock and KKR buying half of $20bn Beacon Pointe Advisors from Abry Partners last month.

KKR wants to support growth plans for Beacon Pointe, a female-led registered investment adviser, and sees its Women’s Advisory Institute as important to serving women, Chris Harrington, a KKR partner, said. The investment in Beacon Pointe follows KKR’s exit this year from wealth management firm Focus Financial, which it took public in 2018.

Some US-based private equity firms are looking to less competitive markets overseas. This summer, Lightyear Capital funds bought UK-based Wren Sterling Financial Planning, and Flexpoint Ford acquired UK-based AFH Financial Group.

Aside from direct investments, most wealth deals were executed by portfolio companies owned by private equity, such as Leonard Green-backed serial acquirer Mariner Wealth and Oak Hill-backed Mercer Advisors. Mariner Wealth announced its ninth acquisition of the year last month, while Mercer Advisors scooped up 15 RIAs this year.

“Nearly all the most active strategic acquirers in today’s market are backed by prominent private equity firms and are often backed by more than one sponsor,” Seivert said.

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Investment

Tesla shares soar more than 14% as Trump win is seen boosting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company

Published

3 days ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”

Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.

Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.

Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.

In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.

The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.

Tesla began selling the software, which is called “Full Self-Driving,” nine years ago. But there are doubts about its reliability.

The stock is now showing a 16.1% gain for the year after rising the past two days.

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Investment

S&P/TSX composite up more than 100 points, U.S. stock markets mixed

Published

3 weeks ago

October 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.

The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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Economy

S&P/TSX up more than 200 points, U.S. markets also higher

Published

4 weeks ago

October 11, 2024

Anne Joseph

TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.

The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.

The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.

The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.

The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GSPTSE, TSX:CADUSD)

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