• Press Release - MFEX acquires Ahorro Best Funds

    Europe’s leading independent fund platform opens an office in Madrid. Ahorro Corporación will develop its investment-banking unit

    Madrid, 17 July 2018.

    Europe’s independent fund platform MFEX Mutual Funds Exchange AB (MFEX), has acquired Ahorro Best Funds, the investor platform operated by Spain’s Ahorro Corporación Financiera (ACF). The transaction has already received approval from the CNMV.*

     

    As a result of this acquisition, MFEX has opened a new office in Madrid. The Spanish office will cover Spain, Portugal, Andorra, Italy and Latin America and forms part of MFEX’s strategy to expand in Southern Europe. MFEX is known for its high level of automation and transparency towards distributors and fund companies. “Our Nordic roots make transparency part of our DNA” says Oliver Lagerström, co-CEO of MFEX.

     

    The Spanish fund industry is one of the largest in Europe. MFEX, which already operates with a number of Spanish fund companies including BBVA Asset Management, March Asset Management, Arcano Asset Management, EDM and Cartesio, aims to increase its number of partnerships in Spain, Portugal and Andorra.

     

    “We are very pleased and proud to work with many industry players” said Pierre-Eric Patricola, head of MFEX in Spain. “Our local presence in Spain allows us to offer tailor made services of proximity including ”traspasos”. MFEX also brings to the Spanish market a fast and efficient processes to collect rebates while helping foreign fund companies distribute their funds in Spain and assisting Spanish fund companies in the cross-border distribution of their funds.”

     

    MFEX has assets of 120bn Euros under intermediation as of 30/06/18 considering the ongoing acquisition of Axeltis, the platform of the French saving banks. MFEX has distribution agreements with more than 820 international asset management firms and covers more than 60,000 funds from 44 different legal domiciles. MFEX provides its clients and partners with fully transparent solutions through a complete set of MIFID2 compliant services. MFEX currently has offices in Stockholm, Paris, Geneva, Milano and Singapore.

     

    Gonzalo Chocano, CEO of Ahorro Corporación Financiera, said, “this transaction strengthens our balance sheet and responds to the strategy of reinforcing our investment banking business that has been agreed by our shareholders, Storm Harbour and Atitlán”.

     

    “We are thrilled to see the warm welcome of many fund companies and distributors to the proven alternative brought by MFEX to the Spanish market that was up until now tied to a restricted and less competitive platform offer” concludes Oliver Lagerström.

     

    * The branch in Spain has already been opened and the start of its operations is just pending on its final registration with the Spanish authorities which is expected to take place shortly.