Apex Group has acquired South Africa-based companies Boutique Collective Investments (BCI) and Boutique Investment Partners (BIP).
BCI is a collective investments scheme manager for third-party branded portfolios.
BIP is an independent investment management and consulting firm, providing multi-manager and consulting services to independent South African financial advisors, and their retail and institutional clients.
BCI will become an Apex Group company alongside the existing FundRock brand which delivers Apex’s ManCo services.
BCI and BIP clients will have access to Apex’s digital banking, fund raising, distribution and administration solutions as well as its ESG rating, reporting and advisory services.
The acquisitions add around 50 new employees to the existing Apex Group platform in South Africa, which currently employs over 1200 people across offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The additions of BCI and BIP come after Apex Group acquired Sanne Group and Maitland.
Peter Hughes, founder and CEO of Apex, comments: “This latest strategic acquisition is further evidence of our commitment to building strategic hubs in South Africa to access the abundant pools of talent that we need to support both our South African and global client bases.
“We look forward to further enhancing our technology-enabled solutions to service the asset management industry in South Africa.”
Heiko Weidhase, CEO of the Efficient Group (parent company of BCI and BIP), adds: “With BCI and BIP becoming part of Apex Group, clients will now benefit from the efficiency of a single relationship with a global service partner delivering technology-enabled solutions across the full value chain of their business.
“The completion of this acquisition allows us to realign our strategic focus on the continued expansion of our wealth, risk and investment segments which service our growing retail client base.”
