Ontario Teachers’ snaps up 7IM

Asset and wealth management are our opening topics this morning, as Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has agreed to take a majority stake in in Seven Investment Management, a UK-based wealth manager, from Caledonia Investments. We’ve got the enterprise value on that one for you.

There is further interest in asset managers as CVC is set to buy a majority stake in Dutch infrastructure investor DIF Capital Partners in a €1 billion deal, according to the Financial Times.

Then we take a look at the latest in a series of Q&As with dealmakers on the outlook for the second half, this time with Oakley Capital partner Steven Tredget.

We also have additional financing information on Permira’s take-private offer for London-listed Ergomed, a deal that we reported on in yesterday’s Dealflow.

Wealthy deal

Let’s start with a bit of wealth management. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPP) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in Seven Investment Management (7IM), a wealth manager, from Caledonia Investments.

The enterprise value was between £400 million and £450 million, according to sources familiar with the matter.

7IM is a client centric, technology-driven wealth and investment manager with around £21 billion ($26.42 billion; €24.54 billion) of assets under management. The company is headquartered in London and Edinburgh.

“We intend to leverage our sector expertise and flexible capital to accelerate 7IM’s growth organically and through M&A,” said Iñaki Echave, senior managing director at OTPP. “We look forward to helping 7IM’s first-class management team to fulfil their ambitious growth plans.

Infrastructure

Sticking with asset management for a little longer. CVC Partners is set to take a majority stake in Dutch infrastructure investor DIF Capital Partners in a deal worth around €1 billion in cash and shares, sources with ‘direct knowledge’ on the matter told the Financial Times.

The deal could be announced later today, according to the FT.

DIF is a Schiphol-headquartered infrastructure fund manager with €16 billion in investments under management. The firm has made over 225 investments to date and raised 11 funds.

In July, DIF announced a £200 million investment in Field, a London-based developer and operator of battery energy storage systems.

PE Hub Europe has reached out to CVC for a comment.

For more deals in the asset management segment, take a look at my recent round-up story here. Permira, KKR and Inflexion are among the PE firms featured in the piece.

Outlook

We have some more reading for those following our Q&A series with dealmakers on their outlook for the second half of the year. Craig McGlashan caught up with Steven Tredget, a partner at Oakley Capital. Tredget had some interesting thoughts on generative AI and tech investing, here is a snippet from the story:

What are the opportunities for technology investing in H2? Is Generative AI on your dealmaking radar?

We invest behind enduring megatrends that we believe have many more years to run and will continue to deliver growth over the medium term and through economic cycles.

Across Europe, a remarkable amount of small- and medium-sized businesses are digitally immature, and in turn there are many regions in Europe where adoption of digital solutions remains low. Both present Oakley with the opportunity to repeat its success of taking advantage of the market disruption caused by digital solutions as they establish in a geography or industry for the first time.

There is no doubt that Generative AI represents the next generation platform shift, in the wake of the internet, smartphones and cloud computing. The investment opportunity will be significant, as will the impact on existing businesses. To navigate this paradigm shift, we have recruited deep expertise in this space, helping us identify both opportunities and threats and providing our current portfolio companies with the insight and guidance to take advantage of the technology.

You can read the full story here.

Financing

If you read yesterday’s Dealflow, you would’ve already seen our reporting on Permira agreeing terms on a cash offer with the board of London-listed Ergomed, a service provider to the pharmaceutical industry headquartered in Guildford in the UK. We have some additional information on the financing of that deal.

Blackstone was the sole lender in the transaction, committing £285 million, which is split between a £200 million uni-tranche and a £85m delayed draw term loan, according to public filings.