Anthos Fund & Asset Management BV, the asset manager of the Brenninkmeijer family’s holding company Cofra, takes pride in moving with the times. It is working on a major transformation, no mean feat in view of the international laws and regulations. Once the veil is lifted, Anthos will transform from a single to a multi-family office.
Luxembourg, as it turns out, finds itself centre stage when it comes to the transformation of Anthos. The asset manager will be subject to supervision as Alternative Investment Fund Manager, or AIFM, in the grand duchy.
The Brenninkmeijer family is one of the richest in the Netherlands and is well known for its retail empire whose Frisian roots date back to 1840. Its Swiss-based Cofra Holding AG also manages the C&A retail fashion chain with 1,575 general and specialty stores throughout Europe. Its total assets under management are still a closely guarded secret.
Investment Officer first reported on the transformation in September 2019, which was then confirmed on enquiry by Jacco Maters, the CEO who had joined Anthos at the end of 2018. But the former top executive of Delta Lloyd Asset Management, which since has merged into NN IP, did not want to comment further on these developments at that stage.
‘Transparency is important’
Further insights were given at the time by chief operating officer Frans Meerveld (photo) of Anthos. He did so in an interview with executive search agency Partners at Work: “Times have changed. You can no longer not be open, transparency is important. On top of that we want to move more towards ‘thinking outside in’. We want to achieve this partly by bringing in new people and with that new ideas and fresh input. This is also part of the broader trend towards more transparency,” Meerveld said.
The family office was preparing itself for a ‘digesting the growth’ operation, Meerveld said in the interview, which has since been removed from the website by Partners at Work. A copy of the interview as it appeared on 4 August 2020 is still available via archive.org.
“Transparency is important.” Indeed, but transparency can also be quite scary, certainly when working for one of the richest and most discrete families in the Netherlands. Moreover: you can only make a good impression once, so the renovation of the family office has so far been done mostly out of sight of the public. But when you look closely, you will see that a lot of work has already been done by the staff of the family office.
They started by attracting big names from the sector. One of them is Ben Kramer (photo), the former country manager of BMO Asset Management in the Netherlands, who was once in the same office building in Amsterdam as Anthos Fund & Asset Management before he made an interim move to Kempen Capital Management. Kramer was recruited as chief client officer in 2019 and in that capacity he is looking for new clientele among wealthy, like-minded families, corporate pension funds, foundations and associations. This expansion of the client base is designed to achieve economies of scale.
Anyone interested in using the services of the family office would do well to know which compass of family values which the family office is following: human dignity, sustainability and good corporate citizenship. If there is a cultural fit, Anthos’ clients can make use of an ‘outsourced chief investment officer’, from whom services can be obtained in several asset classes.
Chiefs in the engine room
In the engine room of the envisaged multi family office, experienced investors have been recruited in recent years: Reinoud van Ieperen Bokhorst, who at Blackrock was responsible for the selection of external managers for the mega large client Rabobank, among others, was bought out to take care of the absolute return strategies; Steven van de Wall is involved in private equity; Boudewijn de Haan in equities; and Robert Lie in real estate.
Other experienced people are a former CIO of De Nederlandsche Bank, Rodrigo Araya Arancibia, who took fixed income under his wing, and Roger Dayala, who joined from Insinger de Beaufort and who is now focusing on hedge funds and commodities.
At the beginning of this year, Dimple Sahni (photo) took on the role of managing director impact funds portfolios at Anthos. She looks at the impact of investments in all asset classes and is thus the de facto CIO in this field. Sahni, with Indian roots and track record that includes Goldman Sachs has been wiith Anthos since 2014 and is considered an authority, as is evident by her inclusion in this year’s list of 50 female leaders in sustainable finance in the Netherlands. Jelena Stamenkova van Rumpt has joined Anthos from PGGM Investments and is responsible for responsible investment.
The Supervisory Board also is worthy of top billing. A well-known name is Leen Meijaard, officially appointed at the start of 2021, was one of the founders of Blackrock’s commercial success in the Netherlands and is currently active as chairman of the supervisory boards of Achmea Investment Management and FC Ajax. Insiders call his network “impressive”.
In total, more than 50 people work at institutional asset manager Anthos, including several young members of the family - their own offspring can also be found at other investment vehicles of holding company Cofra.
Umbrella funds registered in Luxembourg
But even more important than the gallery of names within Anthos Fund & Asset Management is the preparatory work done behind the scenes. For example, in November 2020 Anthos Management Company S.A.R.L. was registered as a supervised entity with the Luxembourg supervisory authority CSSF, with the address Route d’Arlon 19/21 in the municipality of Strassen. In early 2021, roughly 15 funds were set up and registered at the same address. The funds are also listed in the register of the AFM. Two Anthos umbrella funds can also be found as reserved alternative investment funds, known as Raifs, in the Luxembourg Business Register.
They are funds that fall under the European AIFMD directive and are subject to strict reporting rules, although not necessarily in public. Each fund has a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), on the basis of which information about the funds can be found. However, in the case of Anthos we were unable to do so, which may be related to the fact that Anthos’ AIFs have specific target groups in mind and therefore fall outside the transparency and reporting requirements of the regulator. As RAIFs, the funds themselves are not directly supervised; only the investment fund manager, as AIFM, is subject to direct supervision. At the CSSF, Anthos is subject to supervision as an AIFM.
The AFM registration makes it clear that the funds focus on (corporate) bonds, active and passive funds, emerging markets, real estate, absolute return, private equity and impact investing. The information regime of the EU directive does require information to be posted on a website, which Anthos has done with a recently updated website. On it, at least a number of funds, as well as the SFDR classification, can be found.
Coming out is near
A number of more recent developments also indicate that the moment for the ‘coming out’ of Anthos Fund & Asset Management and its presentation as a contemporary multi family office is imminent.
On 14 March 2022, Cofra Holding became the full owner of Anthos. Previously this company was part of Bellafontaine Investments SA, a company based at the same address as Cofra in Zug, and, according to Swiss registry information, also is under the direct control of the Brenninkmeijers.
Last year, writing in a letter accompanying the Anthos’ Responsible Impact Report 2020, CEO Jacco Maters (photo) said that, “… given our history at the forefront of responsible investment (we) set an ambition to underline our industry leadership in 2022.”
And finally, a financial PR agency, Bellier Communication in Amsterdam, has recently been contracted to promote the world premiere of Anthos Asset & Fund Management as a multi family office.
This article was originally published in InvestmentOfficer.nl.
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