Fisher Investments sells stake for up to $3B, but what happens next?

investmentnews.com:

Fisher Investments has announced that two new investors will be taking a minority stake in the firm.

Ken Fisher started his eponymous investment business back in 1979 and today it, and its subsidiaries, manage $275 billion, centered across three principal businesses, Institutional, US Private Client, and Private Client International.

At the start of the year there were suggestions of a takeover bid from Boston headquartered global private equity firm Advent International with a source claiming that talks had started but that Ken Fisher did not want PE money and would more likely seek liquidity from sovereign wealth funds.

The announcement over the weekend is some way short of a takeover but Advent International is involved and set to take a minority stake along with a wholly owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The deal values FI at up to $12.75 billion with Advent and ADIA investing between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.

“This transaction gives us the independent runway with truly exceptional institutional investors who can bring us their wisdom, value our unique culture and goals, and want us to keep doing what we’ve always done, bigger and better, while pioneering never yet done solutions to benefit our clients and employees,” commented Fishers’ CEO Damian Ornani.

Ornani will still be CEO and Ken Fisher will remain as chairman and co-CIO of the $275 billion AUM firm which will continue operating as an independent privately held investment adviser, wealth and asset management firm. The firm says there will be no impact on its more than 150,000 clients globally or its employees.

Ken Fisher will sell personal holdings in FI to Advent and ADIA and will be the first outside investment in FI which has been