PineBridge puts finishing touches on restructured management company

PineBridge Investments is close to completing its integration into Hong Kong’s Pacific Century Group, chief executive Win Neuger told reporters at a media event on Thursday. The group of former AIG Investments professionals expects the deal to close by the end of January at the earliest, and certainly by the end of February.

Win Neuger

In the process of restructuring, PineBridge took the opportunity to streamline the organisation of the investment team, Neuger said. Whereas AIG Investments was fairly “hierarchical” and “structured”, PineBridge has a much flatter organisation. All the investment teams report directly and solely to the executive committee, eliminating the middle levels, he said. Each team will be “self-governed” and “self-propelled”. The intended result is to create a business that is more entrepreneurial and can make quicker decisions, he said.

 

Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, who controls Pacific Century Group, agreed to pay $500 million last year for parts of AIG Investments – everything except the real estate operations, the private bank and certain fixed income assets.

Pacific Century will take over the parts of the management company that AIG previously owned, though AIG will remain as a substantial (33 percent) client. The new asset management firm, PineBridge Investments, will have $89.7 billion in assets under management.

The work that remains to be done before the transfer of ownership closes includes renegotiation of vendor contracts and the transfer of payroll from AIG to PineBridge, regulatory approvals in each of the 32 countries in which PineBridge operates, and finalising consent agreements with clients and LPs.

The entire management team will also have an ownership stake in the management company going forward.