Northill Capital may invest in another emerging fund manager next year John Little

Northill Capital, an investor in asset managers, agreed to acquire a majority interest in Longview Partners earlier this month. That will be its fifth investment. Northill takes things slowly with asset managers; the partners want to make sure they get to know them well and that can take a few years - they don't want to take the risk of losing money over fickle characters. But when the partners are invested, it is akin to a marriage contract. And the few emerging managers that are in Northill's still small collection get quite a bit of help to get off the ground.

Established in London in 2010 by Jon Little, with substantial financial backing from trusts associated with the Bertarellis, a powerful European family, as well as from the four partners (three of whom are ex-BNY Mellon A.M. directors), Northill Capital's long-term strategy is to build a portfolio of high quality specialist asset managers, which involves buying 50% to 80% of the managers' equity.

Northill currently owns stakes in European sub-investment grade credit manager Goldbridge Capital Partners (founded in 2011 in London); Asian value equity manager Ellis Munro Asset Management (2011, Singapore); insurance linked securities manager Securis Investment Partners (2005, London); and US equity growth manager Riverbridge Partners (1987, Minneapolis). The latest investment was in Longview Partners, a $19.5bn specialist asset management firm focused on global equities portfolio management, based in London and Guernsey and founded in 2001. This last deal took almost two years to be completed - although selecting startups usually take less time.

We asked Jon Little if he was planning on making more investments in start-ups. He told Opalesque that yes, h......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.