Royal London Asset Management launches private equity joint venture

22 October 2001

Tweet
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google plus
Send to

Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has announced the establishment of Royal London Private Equity (RLPE), a new company jointly owned by Royal London Asset Management and David MacLellan. MacLellan was most recently the managing director of the Murray Johnstone Group, after working in private equity for 17 years. When Murray Johnstone was acquired by Aberdeen Asset Management last year (16 October 2000, page 1) MacLellan joined the board, but stepped down in May of this year, deciding that he wanted to do something different. Having come into contact with RLAM as a prospective buyer for Murray Johnstone in 2000, MacLellan then approached Christopher Phillips, chief executive at RLAM, with the idea of adding a private equity string to the RLAM bow, hence the formation of RLPE.

RLPE will operate out of offices in London and Glasgow and will in due course take over the running of Royal Londonâ€™s portfolio of private equity funds and direct investments, which have a total value of approximately Â£60m. RLPE is currently undergoing regulatory checks and expects to obtain approval from the relevant governing bodies in three or four months time. At that point it will commence fundraising for its debut limited partnership, to which RLAM will commit up to Â£50m. The fund will aim to raise up to Â£200m for investment in the UK and mainland Europe across a broad spectrum of mid-market deals. Speaking more specifically about the fund MacLellan says that he expects the fund to be investing between Â£5m and Â£25m into mature companies with a total capitalisation of between Â£20m and Â£100m.