Moelis buys Sydney real estate fund manager

Australian financial services group, Moelis Australia has acquired a Sydney-based specialist real estate fund manager, Armanda Funds Management and associated group companies which will be operated under the brand of Moelis Armada Real Estate Asset Management.

Under the terms of the deal, Moelis would buy 100 per cent of Armada for a total consideration of approximately $29.5 million, of which $9.8 million would be payable in cash on completion and 6,382,979 fully paid ordinary shares which would be issued by 30 September.

The consideration shares would be issued within Moelis Australia’s 15 per cent placement capacity and would rank equally with all other ordinary shares on issues.

Also, on completion of the acquisition which was expected to occur in June, all of Armada’s existing staff would join Moelis. Additionally, Armada’s founders, Chris Monaghan and Richard Germain, would be taking on the new roles of managing directors and head of real estate asset management and chief operating officer of real estate asset management, respectively.

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Armada, which was established in 2006, currently has $800 million in assets under management across 10 unlisted single asset funds managed on behalf of a mixture of institutional and high net worth clients.

Thanks to this acquisition and upon its completion, Moelis would expect to hold around $2 billion of assets under management across fixed income, private equity, venture capital, Australian small cap equities, real estate investment trust (REIT) and real estate.

“We are very proud of the business we have built over the past 11 years,” Monaghan said.

“Our clients have enjoyed outstanding returns and we believe that joining Moelis Australia will strengthen our capacity to service clients and to acquire and improve real estate assets in the future.”