Yarra Capital Management has entered into agreement to acquire the Australian business of Nikko Asset Management to create one of Australia’s largest independent fund manager.
Yarra would assume control of Nikko AM’s Australian subsidiary and its associated entities and the Australian equities business would be rebranded as Tyndall.
Expected to complete in April 2021, subject to regulatory approval, the Tyndall brand would be managed by Brad Potter, Nikko AM’s head of Australian equities. The fixed income business would be jointly led by Roy Keenan and Darren Langer as co-heads of Australian fixed income. The two fixed income businesses would be combined but the equity division would remain separate from Yarra’s existing equity division.
Dion Hershan, managing director of Yarra and head of Australian equities, would become executive chair and head of equities and the search for a new managing director had commenced. Until then, Garvin Louie would take the role on an interim basis.
Nikko AM would become a 20% shareholder in the combined group as a strategic investor, alongside private equity firm TA Associates, and appoint a director to its board while Michael Gordon, non-executive director at Yarra, would join the Tyndall board as chair.
Hershan said: “The transaction will enable us to continue strengthening our partnerships with clients and will provide the additional scale to support greater investment in talent, technology and operational excellence.
“Yarra was attracted to the quality of the people within Nikko AM’s Australian business and we are delighted to welcome them into the Yarra team.”
Brad Potter, head of Australian equities at Tyndall, said: “This is a great outcome for our clients and the team. We share the same values and strong alignment with Yarra. We believe Yarra will be an excellent partner and that together we will maintain high quality support functions and a singular focus on delivering investment returns for our clients.
“We’re also very excited to return the Tyndall name to the Australian market, a brand with a strong heritage and excellent reputation of delivering strong outcomes for clients.”
Nikko AM co-chief executive, Hideo Abe, commented: “We are confident that our investment in Yarra will be the catalyst to enhance the capabilities that Australian investors are looking for, while sales, distribution and back and middle office functions will complement each other and thus continue to provide quality service to our clients. We are also excited to be able to expand our Australian and fixed income offering to Japanese and global investors in this new capacity”.
