Manulife to Acquire 75% of Private Credit Shop for $937.5M

Manulife Financial Corp. is the latest firm to expand its private credit offerings through the acquisition of a specialist asset manager.

The insurer announced on Wednesday an agreement to acquire a 75% stake in private credit firm Comvest Credit Partners for $937.5 million. The credit manager would be acquired through Manulife’s global wealth and asset management unit, which manages $900 billion in assets.

Comvest manages $14.7 billion in assets. Manulife plans to combine its existing $3.7 billion credit team with Comvest, creating a private credit platform that manages $18.4 billion. The platform will be rebranded to Manulife | Comvest.

Comvest, founded in 2006, primarily operates in middle-market nonsponsored direct lending. Sponsor-backed lending makes up the core of Manulife’s existing credit platform.

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“Manulife’s existing Senior Credit business and Comvest are highly complementary given the different areas of the market they focus upon,” Manulife stated in the announcement.

The transaction is expected to close in the year’s fourth quarter, subject to regulatory approval. The remaining 25% of shares would be owned by Comvest employees. The deal gives Manulife the option to acquire this remaining 25% stake in the future.

Michael Falk, Comvest’s co-founder, will assume a role as senior adviser and board member. Robert O’Sullivan, its co-founder and CEO, will be appointed head of the new credit platform. He will report to Anne Valentine Andrews, Manulife’s global head of private markets.

In Manulife’s August 7 earnings call, Manulife Global WAM President and CEO Paul Lorentz said the acquisition would help scale the firm’s existing private markets platform and help enhance its offerings in private credit.

“There is significant demand for private credit products today, and by leveraging our global distribution capabilities, we see a significant opportunity to provide our 19 million clients across our retail, retirement, and institutional channels with Comvest’s best-in-class products,” Lorentz said.

The growth of the private credit market has led asset managers and other investors to acquire credit managers to add the capability to offer the asset class to clients or to bolster their own credit platforms.

Manulife, in its earnings report, estimated global private credit assets under management will grow to $2.6 trillion in 2029, up from $1.5 trillion in 2023.

In June, Franklin Templeton announced it would acquire European credit manager Apera ($5.7 billion AUM), in a bid to gain exposure to the lower-middle European credit market. Franklin Templeton had previously acquired private credit managers Benefit Street Partners and Alcentra in 2018 and 2022, respectively.

In July, Man Group announced an agreement to acquire credit manager Barden Hill ($3 billion), building off of the firm’s 2023 acquisition of Varagon Capital Partners. Also in July, BlackRock closed its $12 billion acquisition of private credit firm HPS Investment Partners ($157 billion) that was announced in December 2024.

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Tags: Manulife Investment Management, Private Credit

The National Grid U.K. Pension Scheme completed a 900-million-pound ($1.2 billion) risk transfer transaction via a buy-in from U.K. insurance provider Rothesay Life PLC that will cover 7,130 uninsured members of the pension plan, according to a Tuesday announcement from Rothesay.

The transaction is National Grid’s third, having previously de-risked 2.8 billion pounds of liabilities in 2019 and 800 million pounds in 2020, both with Rothesay.

“We carefully designed this transaction to meet the objectives of the Trustee and National Grid, and Rothesay provided the level of flexibility needed to meet the Scheme’s requirements,” said Mike Edwards, a partner in Aon PLC’s risk settlement group and the lead risk transfer adviser on the transaction, in a statement. “It is a competitive de-risking market for both schemes and insurers right now and to achieve such a positive outcome via an innovative transaction required a high degree of collaboration between all parties.”

Before the transaction, National Grid U.K. reported having 26,000 active, deferred, pensioner and dependent members. The scheme closed to new members in 2002.

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The National Grid transaction was the fourth buy-in in four months closed by Rothesay. In June, Rothesay completed a 20-million pound buy-in with the pension plan of Odeon Cinemas Group’s subsidiary, ABC Cinemas. In May, it completed a 120-million-pound buy-in with the AQA Pension Scheme, a nonprofit charity and examination board. In April, Rothesay completed a 105-million-pound buy-in with the Skipton Building Society Group Pension Scheme, sponsored by the U.K.’s fourth-largest building society.

Rothesay is one of the largest pension insurance specialists in the U.K. The insurer manages more than 70 billion pounds in assets, covering more than 1 million beneficiaries.