Fund firm Aberdeen continues US expansion with Arden buy

Aberdeen Asset Management has continued its acquisition spree with the purchase of Arden Asset Management, a hedge fund provider.

The acquisition is part of Aberdeen’s strategy to strengthen and grow its global alternatives platform.

Arden creates and manages hedge fund portfolios across the liquidity spectrum using research, portfolio construction and risk management. It will offer clients access to “high quality alternative investments across liquid strategies, private markets and real assets”.

Taken together, the two deals will take assets on Aberdeen’s alternatives platform to more than $30 billion.

Averell Mortimer, chief executive and chairman of Arden, added: “Becoming part of Aberdeen will enable us to share ideas and best practice that will assist in continuing to build on our proven track record of developing customized hedge fund and liquid alternative solutions for clients worldwide”.

A spokesman for Aberdeen said Arden’s team of about 20 people would join around 10 staff working in London for the Scottish investment house in its existing hedge fund solutions business.

The Arden deal is expected to close in the December-ending quarte and will help Aberdeen hike its hedge fund unit’s assets to $11 billion.

RBC analyst Peter Lenardos said the transaction was likely to have only a small effect on Aberdeen’s performance. However, the firm has also offered hedge fund investments to retail customers in 2012 through a deal with Fidelity. Last month, Aberdeen reported that its overall assets under management had fallen £23bn in the second quarter of the year to £307.3bn, hurt by falling appetite for emerging market investments. It follows May’s acquisition of Flag Capital Management, a specialist in private equity and property.