Finnish insurer Mandatum Life has acquired almost 20% of Crescit Asset Management, a Swedish alternatives manager, as part of an international growth strategy.

The transaction will be carried out as a direct share issue. Neither parties would be drawn on the monetary value of the 19.9% share deal.

Lauri Vaittinen, senior vice president for investment solutions at Mandatum, said the company was able to offer other institutional investors, such as corporate pension funds, attractive solutions through club arrangements.

“There is great demand for alternatives where Crescit fits in well, complementing our capabilities,” he said.

Jonas Granholm, CEO and founder of Crescit and former global pension head at Skanska, said the alternatives manager was an entrepreneurial company with a strong ownership network that would be strengthened further by the Mandatum deal.

Crescit was launched in 2013 by Granholm and two of his former Skanska colleagues, Hans Biörck and Gustav Lundeborg. The trio are majority owners of Crescit together with Swedish property and venture capital investor Lennart Grebelius.

Mandatum Life has had a presence in the Swedish and Danish institutional markets for some time: it has 50 clients in Sweden and between 10 and 20 in Denmark.

Beyond the Nordics, Mandatum Life has experienced demand from Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Vaittinen said Swiss pension funds in particular were keen on the Scandinavian credit markets.

In Germany, Vaittinen said Mandatum’s assets under management had grown by 20-30% a year. “We expect this to continue over the next few years and do not see any capacity issues arising at this pace,” he said.

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