The erstwhile private equity team at MLC has started its own specialist advisory firm, which is seeking permanent capital for a global fund-of-funds.
The new firm, Longreef Capital, has kept a low profile since its formation in December, advising some funds on individual manager investments and applying for a licence to launch the fund-of-funds product. The former head of MLC’s $1 billion-plus program, Charl Pienaar, left the multimanager in late 2005 but consulted to it for a year, before his MLC colleagues of ten years, Steve Whatmore and Matthew Arkinstall, joined him to form Longreef in December. Pienaar said Longreef’s fund-of-fund product would retain the “;convictional”; characteristic of its MLC predecessor, which never had “;more than two dozen”; underlying manager relationships in an asset class where 50 to 100 underlying relationships are typical. Pienaar said the sell-side transactional background of all three Longreef principals – Whatmore in structured finance, Arkinstall in infrastructure and Pienaar in development capital – allowed them to “;speak the language”; of their target managers, a boon in the highly competitive race to access quality firms. Pienaar said the firm also played up its “;Australian-ness”; and associated openness of presentation, which he said was well received by managers overseas, particularly in the US. The name ‘Longreef’ was chosen to convey an intrinsically Australian, “;great southern ocean”; sort of image, Pienaar said.
Since taking over the top job at the $44 billion Funds SA more than a year ago, chief executive John Piteo has ushered in an investment function overhaul and wrapped up an important stage of the fund’s five-year data transformation program. It pledges to recentre around investment performance and more efficient processes, as the “missing piece” has been found in incoming CIO Con Michalakis.
Darcy SongJanuary 10, 2025
