Apex Group, a global financial services provider, has acquired the fund services and third-party management operations of Maitland International Holdings for an undisclosed sum.
Privately owned Maitland was founded in 1976 by South Africans in Luxembourg as an offshoot of law firm Webber Wentzel with the goal of doing offshore structuring for corporates and wealthy families. The company later added corporate services and, as demand grew, fund administration, and now has several offices worldwide administering funds for 120 direct investment managers and 25 fund sponsors.
Maitland, which has more than $200bn (R3.42-trillion) in assets under administration and $17bn in assets under management, employs 570 employees across SA, the UK, Guernsey and Luxembourg serving a client base of traditional, alternative (hedge, infrastructure and private equity) and mutual funds. However, the majority of those employees are in Cape Town, which is the hub for its fund administration business serving asset managers in the UK, Luxembourg and Guernsey.
“The strategic addition of Maitland adds greater product depth and geographic reach to our fund administration and management company offering,” said Peter Hughes, founder and CEO of Apex. “We are excited to build multiple strategic hubs in SA to access the abundant pools of talent that we need to support both our SA and global client bases.”
Apex was established in Bermuda in 2003 and has more than 80 offices in 40 countries worldwide with more than 10,000 employees. The group recently bought Sanne, a provider of services to the asset management industry, which added about 500 employees in Cape Town.
With the addition of Maitland the Apex Group’s SA headcount will expand to about 1,000 people. There are also plans afoot for Apex to hire about 500 people in Johannesburg over the next 12 months as it seeks to use SA as a hub for its fund administration operations.
Macquarie acted as financial adviser to Apex, while Kirkland & Ellis was its legal counsel. Nomura served as financial adviser to Maitland, with McDermott Will & Emery as legal counsel.
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