Investment firms Quilter and Cheviot Asset Management have joined together to create a new brand: Quilter Cheviot Investment Management.

The merger of the two, who together have approximately 600 charity clients, received regulatory approval on 31 December 2012 and was made official yesterday.

The new independently-owned firm will provide bespoke investment management of £14.2bn of assets (correct as at 3 July 2013) for charities, private clients, professional intermediaries, trusts and pension funds, with 176 investment managers based across the UK, Jersey and Ireland.

Over a billion in charity assets

In terms of its charity business, Quilter Cheviot would have placed 16th in Charity Finance’s latest annual Charity Fund Management survey, based on the standings of the 2012 edition and the then two firms’ combined total UK charity funds of £1.03bn at the time of publication (November 2012; the next survey will be published the same time this year).

In that table, Quilter and Cheviot Asset Management placed 21st and 28th respectively.

"Relationships unchanged" for charity clients

A spokesman for the new firm told civilsociety.co.uk that all charity clients of Quilter and Cheviot have been migrated to the 'Quilter Cheviot'  legal entity as of today. "Their relationship with their current investment manager will remain unchanged," he said. 

"They all come under the 'Quilter Cheviot Investment Management' stream. There will be no changes to the level of service or relationships that charity clients have with the firm."

The spokesman added that the not-for-profit sector remains a core market for the new entity. "Charities are a central part of our business and our aim is to build long-term relationships with charities, established on a foundation of exemplary personal service and professional expertise," he said.

With regards to whether the merger has or will result in any redundancies, the spokesman replied: "We are currently looking at synergies across the business, such as suppliers, resource etc, but there are no fixed outcomes at present."

Latest in a line of fund management mergers

Fund managers with charity interests either merging or buying each other out has been a trend throughout the first two quarters of 2013.

Newton agreed to sell its private client business to Standard Life in February, before Schroders annoucned plans in March to buyout Cazenove and create the UK's biggest charity fund manager.

Then in April, Credit Suisse, the parent company of JO Hambro Investment Management, revealed it was to sell 62.5 per cent of JO Hambro’s issued share capital for £50m to Bermuda National Ltd, while retaining its charity client base.

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