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"With assets under management of $311 billion, we will continue to grow our US CLO business and offer our clients attractive alternative fixed income products through our partnership with Lakemore," said Bas NieuweWeme, global CEO of Aegon AM.

"In a highly volatile and challenging macroeconomic environment, CLOs can provide uncorrelated, transparent, and relatively high current cash flow distributions," said Mohamed Seif, co-founder & managing partner of Lakemore. "Through our strategic partnership and focus on cycle aligned portfolio construction Aegon AM will be able to leverage our proven experience and further strengthen their CLO platform."

Under the terms of the agreement, Lakemore will make multiple investments in Aegon AM's CLO capability, providing equity for the issuance of multiple CLOs in the coming years. In return, Lakemore will gain preferred access to Aegon AM's pipeline of new issue CLO transactions, allowing for enhanced certainty of execution and a path toward significant growth.

"We have experience managing leveraged loans since the late 1990s and know that unexpected changes in business cycles can create the biggest market dislocations," said Jim Schaeffer, global head of leveraged finance at Aegon AM. "Our cycle-based approach to navigating inflection points is a key aspect of our philosophy, and we have chosen to partner with Lakemore given the firm's commitment to methodical, defensive and cycle-aligned risk allocation discipline."

As a leading global investor and employer, Aegon AM has 380 investment professionals that manage and advise on assets of over $311 billion for a global client-base of pension plans, public funds, insurance companies, banks, wealth managers, family offices and foundations. The parent company Aegon N.V., headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, offers products and services in the life insurance, pension, retirement, and asset management fields. Aegon N.V. has businesses across Europe, Asia and the Americas with its main brands being Aegon and Transamerica.

"At Aegon AM, we are big believers that a defensive credit style and broad diversification helps mitigate portfolio risk," said Jason Felderman, head of leveraged loans and portfolio manager at Aegon AM. "To that end, we look forward to working with an experienced partner like Lakemore, which will offer us enhanced market access and further solidify our ability to take full advantage of new issue CLO opportunities."

With offices in Phoenix, London, Dubai and Zurich, Lakemore has established a strong presence globally, working with a growing number of institutional clients in the US and globally. Lakemore primarily invests in super-majority control equity positions of new issue US CLOs. Lakemore has invested in various CLO tranches through all market cycles to provide its investors with stable and predictable cash flow distributions and attractive investment returns.

"Lakemore is committed to serving our global clientele of institutional investors through providing CLO solutions that foster relative stability, high uncorrelated current cash distributions, and risk dispersion," said Dan Norman, senior partner, head of US business operations at Lakemore. "Today's partnership with Aegon AM enhances our roster of global top-tier clients, and we look forward to growing our strategic partnership over the coming years."