French asset managers La Francaise and OFI Asset Management have raised €1.3 billion of seed money to run in a joint venture which they say will become the leading asset management ‘incubator’ in Europe.
The operation is executed through the incubation activities of La Française subsidiary, NeXT Asset Management, and OFI subsidiary, NewAlpha Asset Management.
The business will provide access for investors to new managers in the fund of funds sector and private equity.
It will also seed incubator funds that share revenues in return for seed money, and incubator funds that combine revenue sharing and equity.
La Française, which has €38 billion of assets under management, is 86% owned by Credit Mutuel Nord Europe and 14% by management and employees. OFI is owned by two French institutions – Macif and Matmut – and has €54.5 billion under management.
As part of the venture, La Française is taking a 40% stake in NewAlpha.
In July, NewAlpha and NeXT were appointed to manage the Emergence Equity fund, a seeding fund focused on “traditional” managers.
In January 2012, a sub-fund called Emergence – Absolute Performance appointed the two managers. The sub-fund was created to provide institutional investors with access to “the most promising France-domiciled emerging hedge fund managers”.
©2013 funds europe
