Polar Capital is set to buy a value equity investment team from Los Angeles-based asset manager First Pacific Advisors.
In a stock exchange announcement, published today (February 13), the fund house announced it had reached an agreement to acquire First Pacific’s International Value and World Value equity team.
The team, led by Pierre Py and Greg Herr, will run a set of funds available to advisers and investors through the same channels as Polar Capital’s existing range of investment vehicles.
Mr Py and Mr Herr currently run about $1bn (£770m) of assets and have delivered top quartile performance in their respective sectors over the past three years, according to the stock exchange announcement.
The move comes as Polar Capital looks to expand out of its UK and European wholesale franchises and follows the acquisition of an emerging markets team in 2018.
Polar Capital stated the arrival of Mr Py, Mr Herr and their teams was a “natural extension” of this strategy and brought managers with good track records and existing client relationships into an asset class that complemented Polar Capital’s existing strategies.
The team will establish a joint venture with Polar Capital — to be named Phaeacian Partners — with separate branding.
The deal is expected to be completed in the second half of 2020.
Gavin Rochussen, chief executive of Polar Capital, said: "This is a very exciting development for Polar Capital that begins to deliver our strategy to develop an international and global product and to establish a Polar Capital North American bridgehead to complement our existing east coast presence.
“The establishment of Phaeacian Partners is clear evidence of the delivery of this strategy.”
Mr Rochussen said Mr Py, Mr Herr and their colleagues were “precisely the type of team” Polar Capital had been looking to recruit — a global and international equity team deploying a fundamental value style of investing.
J. Richard Atwood, managing partner of First Pacific Advisors, said: “We are excited to have found Polar Capital and to maintain a continued financial interest in the success of the International Value and World Value strategies.
“We are glad to have identified and launched strategies that have added value for clients and believe this is an ideal alignment of interests for all stakeholders, particularly current investors in these strategies."
Data from Schroders, published by FTAdviser yesterday (February 12), showed value funds experienced their third worst month of performance relative to growth funds in twenty years in January.
imogen.tew@ft.com
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