AssetCo shareholders overwhelmingly approved the reverse takeover of River and Mercantile Group at their annual meeting Wednesday.
On Jan. 25, U.K. investment manager River and Mercantile said it had reached an agreement with AssetCo for an all-share acquisition.
AssetCo was established to acquire and operate asset and wealth management firms, and it already owns 5.85% of River and Mercantile.
AssetCo leaders include Chairman Gilbert Martin, co-founder of Aberdeen Asset Management; Deputy Chairman and Executive Director Peter McKellar, who retired as executive chairman and global head of private markets for Standard Life Aberdeen; and CEO Campbell Fleming, former distribution and marketing executive with Standard Life Aberdeen.
More than 6 million shareholders voted to approve the sale, and only two opposed it, according to a filing with the London Stock Exchange after the annual meeting. A similar vote authorized company directors to allot ordinary shares in the capital of the company or to grant rights to convert any security into ordinary shares.
"Twelve months ago, almost to the day, we received shareholder approval to implement a strategy to develop AssetCo into an asset and wealth manager," Mr. Martin said in the filing.
"We have already made significant progress through establishing interests in an active equity manager, a thematic ETF provider and a wealth management platform. River and Mercantile will now become our core equity offering, and its infrastructure capability will be the cornerstone of our private markets business."
River and Mercantile is also selling its U.K. fiduciary management and derivatives business to Schroders, and is expected to sell its U.S. solutions business in the coming months, leaving AssetCo to focus on asset management.
