The family office of a Finnish businessman is to take a stake in a Spanish asset management firm.
Preon Capital Partners – which is based in Geneva and runs the wealth of Jari Ovaskainen – is to take a 34% stake in Spain’s Augustus Capital AM. The sum was not disclosed.
Ovaskainen “had his first unicorn” in 1999, according to the firm’s website, with the founding of Iobox , a Finnish internet portal sold the following year to Terra Mobile (Telefonica) for €230 million.
Augustus Capital, led by Juan Uguet, was authorised by the Spanish industry regulator CNMV in 2018 to operate as an asset management company.
The Zaragoza-headquartered firm manages the Lierde Sicav – an equity fund with €239 million of assets. The fund was created 25 years ago to manage the assets of the Alierta family, which includes César Alierta, the former president of the Spanish multinational telecommunications giant Telefónica.
An actively-managed open-ended investment fund that invests predominantly in Europe, the Lierde Sicav shows an annual average return of 15% since its inception in 1994, according to Preon Capital.
Uguet said: “This partnership, while ensuring continuity, strengthens considerably our position with the acquisition of new talents. It will also permit the expansion of our offer to new sectors and geographic areas, bringing a truly international dimension to Augustus.”
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