Man Group has announced the launch of a private markets business following the acquisition of US and Europe-based real asset focused investment manager Aalto Invest Holding as it reported quarterly results.
The deal with Aalto, which has $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in funds under management, is due to complete in January 2017, subject to regulatory approval.
The resulting offering, Man Global Private Markets (Man GPM), will look to offer clients "a broader range of investment strategies to complement existing capabilities in public markets".
Aalto, which was founded in 2010 by Mikko Syrjänen and Petteri Barman, will form the real assets platform of Man GPM.
The group said over time its new business would develop strategies across private markets such as real estate, credit, and infrastructure.
Luke Ellis, chief executive of Man Group, said: “In line with our strategy to continue to diversify the firm and our offering for clients, this private markets capability is complementary to our broad offering in liquid strategies.
“As co-heads of real assets, Petteri and Mikko will work with Jonathan Sorrell to help to grow this area of the business, which will offer investors exposure to longer duration capital products and benefit from Man Group's world class infrastructure, broad investment expertise and global resources.”
Meanwhile, in its trading statement for the quarter to the end of September, the group announced plans to repurchase up to $100m of shares and confirmed it would review further potential acquisition opportunities.
Overall the group enjoyed net inflows of $1.3bn for the period.
But its discretionary long-only arm, GLG, saw net outflows of $0.2bn. This included $0.3bn from its Japan CoreAlpha fund, and net outflows of $0.2bn across other strategies, partially offset by $0.3bn of net inflows for the recently launched Emerging Market Debt strategies.
Mr Ellis added: “There was good investment performance across both alternative and long-only strategies at GLG and Numeric, offsetting negative performance among some of AHL's strategies this quarter, as the market proved more difficult for trend following strategies.”
