AGF Management, with USD37 billion under management, has completed its acquisition of 100 per cent of FFCM, to further strengthen their quantitative investing and ETF platform brought to market under the AGFiQ banner.
“Today, we further build on our strategic plan to diversify across the investment spectrum,” says Judy Goldring, Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, AGF. “Through organic growth and acquisition, we have been able to launch new platforms and develop innovative products.”
The firm writes that in November 2015, AGF acquired the majority of the equity of FFCM, a Boston-based boutique asset manager and ETF strategist whose expertise is delivered through a family of factor-based alternative and smart-beta ETFs and a number of ETF managed solutions.
The acquisition resulted in the launch of AGFiQ Asset Management (AGFiQ), with CAD5.7 billion under management, a quantitative investment platform powered by the intellectually diverse, multi-disciplined team that combines the complementary strengths of investment professionals from AGF, Highstreet Asset Management (Highstreet) – which became a part of the AGF family through an acquisition in 2006 – and FFCM.
AGFiQ came to market as a combined platform in late 2017 and has since delivered nine ETFs to the Canadian marketplace and secured over USD400 million in institutional funding for an AGFiQ custom solution in the United States over the last three months.
“We had the foresight to see that by combining the research acumen, investment capabilities and intellectual capital of Highstreet and FFCM we could effectively expand our presence in the quantitative investment space,” says Goldring.
“This is a natural next step in our partnership and reinforces that we are a part of the AGF family,” says Bill Carey, Chief Executive Officer, FFCM. “Partnering with AGF has allowed us to grow our research, marketing and product development capabilities, while also bringing us operational scale and efficiencies.”
“This acquisition supports the long-term diversification of our investment capabilities allowing us to deliver value-added and differentiated opportunities within our yield, global and quantitative platforms to provide our global client base with the outcomes they seek,” says Kevin McCreadie, President and Chief Investment Officer, AGF Investments Inc.
