US group puts United on the market
US-based mutual fund giant Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) has put bou-tique funds management group United Funds Management on the market.
US-based mutual fund giant Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) has put bou-tique funds management group United Funds Management on the market.
MFS chairman and United managing director Graham Lenzner confirms that a number of approaches have been received for United and that several parties, including some well known names, are presently conducting due diligence investigations. A deal is expected to be concluded within a few weeks.
Lenzner says MFS has always been a bottom up stock picker and views United's manager of managers business to be inconsistent with its own philosophies.
He adds that the negotiations follow senior management changes at MFS, which re-cently experienced the premature death of its chairman.
However, he notes that while MFS is exiting the master trust side of the busi-ness, it still intends to maintain a wholesale presence in Australia and will continue to make its global products available to the local market.
"We are anxious to ensure that our clients and distributors are more than com-fortable with the hands to whom the business is passed," he adds.
United, which has funds worth about $300 million under management in Australia, was founded by James Purvis, Lynn Wood and Susan Gosling just over three years ago.
At the time, MFS took a 51 per cent stake in the company, but it increased this to 100 per cent in December last year.
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