Natixis Investment Managers announced Thursday that it has combined its three regional private equity businesses into a single unit called Flexstone Partners with a total of $6.7 billion in assets under management, said Eric Deram, Flexstone CEO.
Mr. Deram had been the founder of one of the businesses, European-based Euro Private Equity. He said he is taking on the lead role at Flexstone because New York-based Caspian Private Equity's founder Nader Motamedy, partner and CEO, is retiring at the end of 2018 and Singapore-based Eagle Asia Partners is the smallest business of the three.
The combination of the three businesses will allow Flexstone to more easily offer global investment solutions. A bigger entity will also be better able to gain new clients and the formerly separate units will be able to "cross-pollinate," marketing to each other's clients, he said.
Flexstone will also be able to streamline its back- and middle-office functions, enabling it to provide clients consolidated reporting on a global basis.
Flexstone plans to launch global co-investment and secondary funds, he said.
"We have a series of co-investment and secondary funds which are regional," Mr. Deram said.
Currently, 25% of the Flexstone's AUM is from commingled funds, mainly co-investment and secondary funds. The remaining 75% is in separately managed accounts. Some 80% of the assets are fully discretionary.
