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Global Conglomerate Forays Into Wealth Management

Josh O'Neill

12 January 2018

, the global conglomerate, has expanded into wealth management with the acquisition of South Africa’s Cannon Asset Managers, its third deal in six months.

The firm will take over the Johannesburg-based money manager from Citadel Wealth Management, Bidvest said in a statement, without disclosing the terms of the deal.

“We have made acquisitions and are building a full-services business,” Japie van Niekerk, managing director of Bidvest Financial Services and Bidvest Bank, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “We have different acorns that we planted that are growing nicely. We wanted an asset management business.”

Cannon was founded in 1998 and has five funds listed on its website.

The deal is the latest in a string of recent acquisitions by Bidvest Group, and marks its first foray into money management. It follow’s the firm’s purchase of FinGlobal, a provider of financial services to South Africans living outside the country, and First Data Holding’s South African merchant services unit. Bidvest Group’s parent also operates car rentals, office products and freight, among other services.

Bidvest Financial Services is funding the purchase with its own cash reserves.