The big managers continue to get bigger through M&A, with MetLife’s institutional asset management business buying PineBridge Investments this week.
MetLife Investment Management is purchasing PineBridge, with roughly $100 billion in global assets, from Hong Kong-based Pacific Century Group in a transaction valued at $1.2 billion. As part of the deal, MetLife will pay $800 million in cash at closing, $200 million subject to achieving certain targets in 2025, and $200 million in a multi-year earnout. The acquisition does not include PineBridge’s private equity funds business and its joint venture in China.
PCG acquired the New York-based investment firm from insurance giant American International Group in 2010 for $277 million, when AIG managed $87.3 billion in assets. AIG sold what was then AIG Investments to pay back taxpayers after the government bailout of the insurer in 2008. (The PineBridge name is a mashup of its historic location on Pine Street in lower Manhattan and Bridge, AIG’s internal name for the project to sell the business — and which was intended to evoke a bridge to the future.) PCG, founded by billionaire Richard Li, has been looking to sell its stake in PineBridge since at least February.
The acquisition of PineBridge is part of MetLife’s new five-year plan to grow its business in four key areas: asset management, group benefits, retirement solutions, and international markets. PineBridge will add significant scale to the MetLife business while broadening the firm’s global offerings and distribution reach, bringing its assets to more than $700 billion when it closes. (MetLife Investment Management had $609.3 billion in assets as of September 30).
John McCallion, MetLife CFO and head of MIM, said the transaction will expand MIM’s public and private credit offerings and global capabilities. PineBridge brings a collateralized loan obligation platform, a multi-asset business, a global line of equity strategies, as well as direct lending and European real estate — all of which complement MetLife’s existing capabilities.
McCallion said the deal will also meaningfully extend its global footprint, with more than half of the client assets being acquired in the transaction held by investors outside of the U.S., and one-third of the assets held by investors in Asia.
MetLife President and CEO Michel Khalaf said that while the acquisition of PineBridge furthers MetLife’s “ambition to accelerate growth in asset management,” he added that the manager “is on a good path to grow its business organically, supplemented by targeted, complementary inorganic growth.”
MetLife buying PineBridge is the latest deal in which a large investment firm is seeking scale through a targeted acquisition. In just the last few months, BlackRock has said it will buy HPS for $12 billion, Hightower purchased NEPC, Blue Owl made a billion-dollar purchase of digital infrastructure fund manager IPI Partners, and Ares scooped up GCP International for $3.7 billion.
