Why did Regal back out of Platinum bid?

Regal-Partners-Limited/regal/Platinum/M&A/

26 February 2025
| By Laura Dew |
image
image image
expand image

Regal Partners has expanded on its decision to walk away from a potential acquisition of Platinum as it shares its full-year results. 

It was announced in September that Regal was considering an acquisition of Platinum Asset Management, but its first offer of 0.274 Regal shares for each Platinum share was initially rejected. A subsequent announcement led to the firm being granted an exclusive period of due diligence that lasted two months. 

However, in December, the firm said it had terminated these discussions

"Platinum advises that discussions with Regal have ceased, removing the uncertainty that has persisted since Platinum rejected Regal’s initial proposal,” Platinum told the ASX at the time. 

Speaking on a results webinar, CEO Brendan O’Connor expanded on why the firm opted to walk away from the deal.

He said: “We walked away from Platinum because we couldn’t agree on a price. Our great concern was that funds under management were eroding faster than we could get our head around. We couldn’t build sufficient conviction in the price that we were looking to pay so we walked away.”

FUM at Platinum has declined from $15.1 billion in January 2024 to $10.9 billion in January 2025 and, in its recent results, it said it had seen $1.6 billion in outflows from retail investors. 

While it opted to decline an acquisition of Platinum, it did acquire 100 per cent of alternative investment specialist Merricks Capital, a 50 per cent stake in Taurus Funds Management and a minority stake in Argyle Group during the calendar year.

Asked by an analyst about any further acquisition pipeline opportunities, O’Connor said: “It would be areas or individual teams or businesses that would expand our capability or diversify our offering so that could be a combination of retail distribution and capabilities in areas where we are underweight. 

“We’d like to do a lot more in credit but there are other alternative asset classes that we are not in today that we would like to enter.

“Private equity is certainly part of an alternative house and would be a natural fit but we have nothing to announce in the short term.”

In the firm’s full-year results, it said it has $18 billion in funds under management, up 64 per cent from $11 billion in 2023, and a statutory net profit after tax (NPAT) of $66.2 million. Net inflows were $1.9 billion and $600 million of these came from offshore investors that the firm said is a strategic priority. 

It particularly noted accelerated inflows into multi-strategy products that highlight ongoing demand for diversified, alternative vehicles. 
 

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

So we are now underwriting criminal scams?...

1 month 4 weeks ago

Glad to see the back of you Steve. You made financial more expensive, not more affordable as you claim, and presided ...

2 months ago

Completely agree Peter. The definition of 'significant change is circumstances relevant to the scope of the advice' is s...

4 months ago

Entireti has unveiled the new name for the AMP financial advice businesses that it acquired last year....

3 weeks 5 days ago

A Sydney financial adviser has been permanently banned from providing any financial services, with the regulator deriding his “lack of integrity, trustworthiness and prof...

2 weeks 3 days ago

Minister for Financial Services, Stephen Jones, has provided further information about the second tranche of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes (DBFO) reforms....

1 week 2 days ago

TOP PERFORMING FUNDS