Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Jupiter has agreed to buy CCLA, one of the biggest managers of money for UK charities, in a £100mn deal as the group seeks to grow its assets after a period of poor performance and client defections.
London-listed Jupiter said on Thursday that the acquisition of CCLA, which counts the Church of England as one of its biggest clients, will add £15bn in assets under management.
Jupiter’s chief executive Matthew Beesley said the deal would help the group to “increase scale” in its home market in the UK “without any disruption to our existing clients”.
CCLA’s client base has little overlap with Jupiter’s. More than a fifth of assets managed by CCLA, which has been historically owned by its non-profit client base, are from the Church of England.
Jupiter is one of several UK midsized asset managers contending with high costs, regulatory pressures and customer withdrawals as investors shift their money into cheaper index-tracking products.
In May, it announced further cost cutting of £15mn to reduce its cost-income ratio to 70 per cent from 78 per cent. Acquiring CCLA is expected to accelerate the savings, according to a person familiar with the deal. Jupiter expects that acquiring CCLA will increase its profitability immediately.
The fund management group has struggled in recent years with poor performance. It lost star fund manager Ben Whitmore last October and its funds outflow in 2024 was more than £10bn.
Since taking the top job in 2022, Beesley has made other moves to try to bolster the business, such as poaching an investment team from rival Origin to expand in global equities.
Jupiter’s share price rose as much as 12 per cent to a new 52-week high in early trading after the announcement.
“We believe this acquisition represents a sensible use of excess capital,” according to Stuart Duncan, an analyst at Peel Hunt.