Colony Capital has agreed to acquire buyout firm Abraaj Group's Latin American, North African, sub-Saharan African and Turkey funds management business and its limited partnership interests in the funds, along with staff at the eight offices that manage the funds, the firms said in a news release on Thursday.
The funds acquired by Colony Capital include the Abraaj Africa Fund III, which has assets of $990 million; the Abraaj North Africa Fund II, with assets of $375 million; the Abraaj Turkey Fund I, with $526 million; and the Abraaj Latin America Fund II, which has assets of $545 million, according to an Abraaj Group spokeswoman. She declined to comment on the value of the deal.
The transaction is expected to be completed on July 1. Colony Capital has also agreed on an interim basis to oversee group funds not being acquired so "the group and all its stakeholders have a comprehensive global solution in place," according to the news release,
Abraaj Holdings, once one of the developing world's most influential investors, earlier this month filed for a court-supervised restructuring as it battles allegations of misused funds. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte, the group's joint provisional liquidators, assisted in the Colony transaction.
"We are delighted to have crafted this comprehensive global solution for Abraaj and its stakeholders and sincerely hope that this can enable the process of rebuilding on all sides and also bring an end to the speculation that has swirled around Abraaj over the last months," said Tom Barrack, Colony Capital's founder and executive chairman, in the news release.
Afir Naqvi, founder of The Abraaj Group, added in the release: "The appointment of the joint provisional liquidators and the start of the process of restructuring this business that we operated across diverse markets is a moment of introspection, but also one of satisfaction, knowing that the teams that have been nurtured over the years and the businesses that we were proud to invest in now have a clearly defined future and a good home that will become the custodians of the next phase of this journey."
Officials at Colony Capital could not provide comment by press time.
Bloomberg contributed to this story.
