Delaware Investment Advisers Ltd. and Hellman & Friedman LLC, a leading private equity firm, today announced that the buy-out of Delaware International Advisers from Delaware Investments, an affiliate of Lincoln National Corporation (Lincoln) was successfully completed by the management team and Hellman & Friedman. The firm also announced that, with immediate effect, Delaware International Advisers Ltd was applying to change its name to Mondrian Investment Partners Limited. As previously announced, Lincoln is being paid approximately $172 million and relieved of certain obligations.
"We are extremely excited about our future prospects," said David Tilles, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Mondrian Investment Partners. "Our new ownership structure provides our company with a strong platform for stability and growth while supporting continued high-quality service for our clients. We are greatly encouraged by the overwhelming vote of confidence from clients and consultants, and the invaluable support of Hellman & Friedman, our equity partner."
"Mondrian Investment Partners is a superb asset manager, with a disciplined and distinctive value-driven philosophy and blue chip clients," said Matthew Barger, Deputy Chairman of Hellman & Friedman. "Mondrian's directors have worked well together for many years to deliver tremendous value for their clients. We believe this new ownership structure will help take Mondrian to the next phase of its development."
With over $26 billion under management, Mondrian Investment Partners is amongst the largest active managers of international and global assets for US institutional investors. The company uses a team-based approach to investment analysis and portfolio construction, and will continue to focus on its long-term value investment philosophy with an emphasis on absolute returns rather than relative performance. On the equity side, rigorous dividend discount analysis is used to identify undervalued securities across all markets and industries. The fixed income team utilizes sophisticated inflation forecasting techniques to find global bond markets that offer high, inflation adjusted, yields. The company will continue with discretionary sub-advisory relationships representing over $4 billion of assets for Delaware and Lincoln branded products both in the US and UK market place.
Under the new ownership structure, the senior management team owns a majority stake in the company. Also, as a result of the transaction, Mondrian has been able to offer additional employees equity interests in the company taking the total employee equity participation to 60 staff, further strengthening the company's incentive plans designed to motivate and retain key individuals. The London team in its entirety will continue with the company. The client service team in Philadelphia is moving to new company premises at Two Commerce Square, Philadelphia and will provide seamless coverage to existing clients.
Management and its equity partner first announced the transaction on 5 May 2004, and have since received all regulatory and other necessary approvals.
About Delaware International Advisers (to be renamed Mondrian Investment Partners Limited)
Founded in 1990, the London-based firm is a value-oriented, international equity and fixed income manager serving primarily institutional clients. Prior to this transaction, the firm was known as Delaware International and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Lincoln, a US based financial services company. The company, under its new name, Mondrian Investment Partners, will continue to follow its disciplined, value-oriented investment philosophy that has generated a consistently impressive track record of long-term performance, with less volatility than benchmark indices and most other institutional managers. The company has over 100 employees in its UK and US offices.
The address and telephone numbers in London remain unchanged. In Philadelphia, North American marketing and client services have relocated to: Two Commerce Square, 2001 Market Street, Philadelphia with a new telephone number +1 (215) 825-4500.
PHILADELPHIA: Suite 3810, Two Commerce Square, 2001 Market Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19103-7039, United States
Telephone: (215) 825-4500,
email: clientservices.us@mondrian.com
LONDON: Third Floor, 80 Cheapside, London, EC2V 6EE,
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7477 7000,
email: clientservices.uk@mondrian.com
Email addresses for both offices change to firstname.lastname@mondrian.com though communications to previous email addresses will be forwarded until the end of the year.
About Hellman & Friedman LLC
Hellman & Friedman LLC is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with additional offices in New York City and London. Since its founding in 1984, the Firm has raised and managed approximately $5 billion of committed capital and invested in over 45 companies. Hellman & Friedman recently completed raising its fifth fund, Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners V, L.P., a $3.5 billion fund. Representative investments include Axel Springer AG (ASV GR), ProSieben Sat.1 AG (PSM GR), Formula One Holdings, Ltd, Arch Capital Group Limited (ACGL), the NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc. (NDAQ), Young & Rubicam, Inc., Western Wireless Corporation (WWCA), Franklin Resources, Inc. (BEN), and others. For more information, visit www.hf.com.