Old Mutual’s £600m sale to fund star

STAR fund manager Richard Buxton is buying investment firm Single Strategy from Old Mutual.

The 53-year-old has run Single Strategy for the banking group since 2015, and has teamed up with other senior workers and private equity firm TA Associates to take it over in a £600m deal.

Single Strategy looks after £25.7bn of backers’ money, and Buxton will stay on along with most top staff. He said: ‘I believe this is a good outcome for our customers and our staff.’

The deal is expected to complete at the start of January.

Single Strategy’s clients tend to be large financial advisors and other institutions, meaning the ordinary savers whose cash it looks after will not see any changes.

The sale is part of a push to split Old Mutual, as the Anglo-South African titan finds its business model increasingly difficult to operate due to international red tape.

Under chief executive Bruce Hemphill, it is being broken into a US asset manager, a South African insurer, lender Nedbank and British investment house Old Mutual Wealth, renamed Quilters.

Hemphill, 54, will get a £9m payout if the break-up goes ahead.