iPartners takes majority stake in Melbourne fund manager
Alternative asset manager iPartners Funds Management has announced a new acquisition to support its retail presence with a majority stake in Mi Funds Management.
With the transaction, iPartners will take joint responsibility for the funds management and investor relations under the Mi Funds’ umbrella, targeting $1 billion of funds under management over the next few years.
The deal is expected to boost iPartners’ ability to support its intermediary clients, aligning with its broader private credit capability.
“iPartners has always had the ambition to take the teams’ private credit capabilities to retail investors, and through the equity stake partnership with Mi Funds, iPartners group can accelerate these ambitions in the upcoming months,” explained Travis Miller, managing director and co-founder of iPartners.
He described the acquisition as a “natural extension” of the firm’s longstanding relationship with Mi Funds’ investment directors Ben Meikle and Colin Campbell.
Commenting on the deal, Meikle said it prepares the Melbourne fund manager for the next stage of growth.
“Working with iPartners provides national coverage which allows us to build on the trust and support from our current investor base and the opportunity to reach new clients,” he stated.
Mi Funds’ flagship Market Intelligence Income Fund is a retail private credit fund launched in 2023 with over $8.1 million in assets under management.
Since inception, it has delivered 9.54 per cent against the benchmark RBA official cash rate, plus 4 per cent per annum return of 8.54 per cent.
Meanwhile iPartners, founded in 2017, has seen over $6.5 billion total volume of alternative assets delivered across a number of institutional grade investments in private credit, asset backed debt (ABS), property, private equity and private credit funds.
According to Preqin, assets under management in private debt in Asia-Pacific (APAC) currently stand at almost US$100 billion as of August 2024. It marks a sixfold rise over the past decade, up from US$15.4 in 2014.
AUTHOR
Rhea Nath
Recommended for you
The volume that financial advisers have invested in private credit funds could be among disclosures that providers have to make to ASIC amid a regulatory crackdown on private markets.
Platinum Asset Management has appointed Northern Trust to provide asset servicing solutions for their $11 billion Australian funds.
A leading consultancy believes asset managers will be reluctant to expand overseas in 2025 as high distribution costs blow out potential benefits, but this is providing tailwinds for Australian third-party distributors.
Three of the largest ETF providers reported net inflow increases of more than 100 per cent during 2024, as Betashares admits it “underestimated” the scale of annual inflows the industry would see.
