Research consultancy buys out PE consultancy in a blockbuster deal.

New York advisory Aksia will purchase private equity consultancy TorreyCove Capital Partners. The deal will see the two firms marry under the name Aksia.

Aksia has specialized in private credit and hedge fund strategies. TorreyCove has specialized in private equity and real asset strategies, according to a press release.

“We have always been on friendly terms,” Aksia CEO James Vos told Barron’s last week.

“There are firms that do everything but many of them may not be as deep as specialists in alternatives,” he later said.

The new firm will have 240 employees and work with clients with a total AUM of roughly $160 billion.

The company will have its headquarters in New York. It will have offices in San Diego, London, Tokyo, Boston, Athens, and Hong Kong.

Aksia in the New World of Private Equity

The deal comes at a time that alternative investment firms are sitting on a lot of capital. Private equity firms alone have roughly $1.5 trillion in dry powder on the sidelines. In addition, private equity shops have looked to maximize shareholder value by moving from partnerships to corporate status. KKR, Blackstone Group, Apollo, and Carlyle Group all made that switch over the last six months.

The Aksia merger will not see any layoffs. Instead, Aksia’s CEO said that the companies are looking to hire. Both firms were in hiring mode before this and the combined firm will be in hiring mode coming out of this,” Vos told Barron’s.

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