MetLife on Wednesday announced that its institutional asset management business agreed to acquire three traditional fixed income and equity portfolio management teams from Mesirow. The acquisition includes the high yield and bank loan, strategic fixed income and small-cap equity teams, and certain related investment products.
The transaction will help transfer about $6 billion of assets managed by the acquired teams and will advance the development of MetLife Investment’s leveraged finance platform.
The acquired teams consist of about 20 investment professionals, all of whom are expected to join MetLife Investment.
“Building businesses with investment talent is a core belief,” MIM President Jude Driscoll said. “As fundamental, bottom-up investors, these investment teams are excellent strategic fits and bring seasoned talent to MIM. By leveraging the power of the MIM platform, we believe we can accelerate growth in these strategies through investment performance and the breadth of our distribution capabilities.”
“We are confident that MetLife will deliver scaled resources well suited to these three traditional investment strategies,” Natalie Brown, Mesirow chief executive officer, said. “Going forward, Mesirow will continue to focus on growing our alternatives capabilities and core Wealth Management, Fiduciary Solutions, and Capital Markets/Investment Banking offerings, which have over $300 billion in total assets under supervision.”
Third Street Partners served as advisor to MetLife in this transaction.
