The latest M&A deals in wealth management across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Bletchley Park AM

Diginex, a global blockchain solutions and financial services company, has bought a 75 per cent stake of Bletchley Park Asset Management, a “digital asset hedge fund” investing in crypto assets such as digital currencies.

As part of the agreement, BPAM keeps full autonomy as a stand-alone hedge fund and will be added to Diginex’s financial services product suite, which is being developed to include: asset management, insured custody, corporate finance, and a full multi-jurisdictional regulated exchange launching in 2019.

“The BPAM acquisition is a logical progression in the build-out of our financial services offering,” Richard Byworth, chief executive at Diginex, said.

The asset management firm has delivered returns of 4.6 per cent – including fees – since it started operations on 1 September 2017, handily beating the average return of Bitcoin and Ethereum, which sank 10.2 per cent over the same period. The fund invests in areas including initial coin offerings. The fund management firm is regulated in Jersey and managed by Lewis Fellas, chief executive and chief investment officer.

While certain digital coins have suffered huge swings in values during recent months – Bitcoin has fallen dramatically over the past 12 months – there remains considerable interest around alternative “currencies” and the distributed ledger technology – aka blockchain – with which they are associated.