National Australia Bank has established a new boutique incubator division, nabInvest, to help expand the company's presence in the boutique space.
Garry Mulcahy, who returned from the UK for the position, will be the new division's chief executive.
The division's first purchase is a 51 per cent stake in new boutique Northward Capital. The company was formerly Insurance Australia Group's remaining in-house Australian equities funds management team.
The six-person investment team will hold the remaining 49 per cent, but will move to a majority shareholding in the coming years. Northward will run as a stand-alone, independent business within NAB.
Darren Thompson will be the company's chief executive, while Simon Rutherfurd will be chief investment officer. Both came across from the previous IAG-related company, and bring the company's client portfolio with them, giving them start-up funds under management of $1.3 billion.
While the company has specialised in wholesale Australian equities management to date, Thompson said they hoped to use the new NAB and MLC connections to establish themselves in the retail space.
Northward will maintain its relationship with IAG, keeping it as a key client, Thompson said.
IAG chief investment officer John Stratton said the move complemented their external management strategy.
The transaction's cost was not revealed.
Source:
The Financial Standard