Investec money manager seen as target after split from bank

Bloomberg

After amassing 109 billion pounds ($143 billion) in assets within the belly of Investec Plc, Hendrik du Toit can now plot his own course as the money manager he founded splits from the banking group.
For Investec Chief Executive Officer Stephen Koseff it is a bittersweet moment. He’s preparing to leave the company next month after 40 years of helping to grow a local Johannesburg financier of doctors and lawyers into a giant with more than 10,000 employees and offices from New York to Sydney. Investec is spinning off the asset-management unit after a review found there is not much synergy with its banking and wealth and investment divisions.
“I’ll relate it to when my daughter left home and got married,” Koseff, 67, said. “At first, it was very hard. Now I have three grandchildren. She was also allowed to go on and develop as an individual. We have been building Investec Asset Management together with Hendrik and his team for 28 years. It’s like letting one of our children go, but we’re giving it its own wings to fly.”
Du Toit, 56, who holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Cambridge, and his Investec Asset Management are being released at a time when size matters in an industry facing pressure on fees and intensifying competition.
It also comes as mergers
and acquisitions are being used as a quicker route to add assets in a business where it can take years to build a client following.
“In terms of M&A — asset management would be a relatively tempting target,” Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Plc, said in email comments.