(Bloomberg) -- South African asset manager Ninety One Ltd. has agreed to sell a stake to Sanlam Ltd., joining a raft of investment firms that have been tapping the deep pockets of insurers through such deals.
Sanlam, the country’s biggest insurer by market value, will pay roughly 5 billion rand ($276 million) for the 12.3% stake in Ninety One, according to a statement on Wednesday. As part of the transaction, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, Sanlam is expected to transfer roughly 400 billion rand of its assets to Ninety One.
At a joint press conference, Sanlam Chief Executive Officer Paul Hanratty said his firm will become an anchor investor in Ninety One’s private and specialist credit strategies, which Ninety One CEO Hendrik du Toit expects will allow it to tap the “very substantial cash flows” in the global private markets. Ninety One already manages more than 3.3 trillion rand of assets.
The tie-up is the latest in a slew of such partnerships between asset managers and insurers seeking to leverage their cash pools. Some of the world’s biggest names in investment — including Apollo Global Management, Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co. — have either opted for full ownership of insurers or formed multibillion-dollar alliances in their pursuit of a steady stream of capital and even more fee-generating assets.
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