East Capital, the Stockholm-headquartered independent asset manager specialising on Eastern European financial markets, has acquired Asia Growth Investors, the Swedish asset management company.

AGI, which focuses on China, was founded in 2004 and has €240 million ($326 million) under management.

“We believe the main growth in the world will come from Eastern Europe and China,” said Peter Elam Håkansson, founder and chairman of East Capital.

“Having two specialised investment teams under the same roof covering these two exciting parts of the emerging markets universe will be a very valuable additional offering to our investors,” Håkansson added.

“China is becoming a global economic superpower and the world’s largest equity market which makes this expansion for us further east a natural progression.”

Karine Hirn, one of East Capital’s founding partners, will relocate to Shanghai in August 2010 in order to follow the developments in China.

East Capital’s investment team will continue to focus on Eastern Europe while a separate specialised investment team will manage the China funds.

Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals, expected to be obtained in June 2010.

East Capital, founded in 1997, manages €4.2 billion both in public and private equity. Headquartered in Stockholm, the firm has also offices in Paris, Tallinn, Moscow, Oslo, Hong Kong, Vienna and Kyiv.