Whitman Asset Management, a fund management and private client investment firm, has acquired Kestrel Partners’ AIM Inheritance Tax Portfolio service (KITS), bringing it within Whitman’s existing AIM IHT portfolio management business.
Kestrel and Whitman are working in close partnership to enable clients to transfer their AIM IHT portfolio management agreements, and the majority of KITS clients have already confirmed they will transfer to Whitman.
The Whitman Smaller Companies team led by Christopher Pease has 15 years’ experience managing AIM IHT portfolios for private clients. The Whitman AIM Inheritance Tax Portfolio Service is a discretionary managed portfolio of AIM-traded companies held in segregated accounts, selected and expected to receive 100 per cent relief from Inheritance Tax (IHT), after being held for just two years, provided they are held at the time of death.
Araminta Le Flufy, CEO of Whitman Asset Management, says: “We are delighted that so many of the KITS clients have decided to become clients of Whitman. We see AIM IHT portfolio investing as a prudent tax planning tool, and most importantly giving investors excellent exposure to the smaller company asset class, which we believe has the potential for extremely attractive returns over the long term. We are steadily expanding our private client business and continue to invest in new people that share our vision of an investment-led service, using our size and experience as a distinct advantage for the benefit of our clients.”
Oliver Scott, co-founder and Joint Managing Partner at Kestrel Partners, adds: “We launched KITS ten years ago; since then we have built an enviable track record and achieved considerable growth in assets under management. However, over the past few years Kestrel has focused increasingly on its micro-cap activist strategy, primarily aimed at institutional clients, and our AIM IHT operations have become a significantly smaller part of our overall business. We have therefore decided that our KITS clients would benefit from being serviced by a specialist private client and AIM IHT Investment Manager. We believe Whitman’s ethos and culture will provide good continuity of service to our clients that transfer to them. Following this sale, the Kestrel team will focus on its successful micro-cap activist strategy, specialising in business critical software companies.”
