Man Group buys Numeric Holdings for initial $219 mln

LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - Man Group (Other OTC: MNGPF - news) has bought U.S. asset manager Numeric Holdings for an initial $219 million to broaden the British hedge fund's U.S. and computer-driven fund activities.

Privately-owned Boston-based Numeric has been up for sale since early 2013 and Man Group confirmed last month it was in talks to buy the company, which has $14.7 billion of assets under management, mostly owned by institutional investors.

Numeric is majority owned by TA Associates, a private equity group.

Man Group Chief Executive Manny Roman said the deal meant the company could advance with two of its core objectives.

"First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) , to build a diversified quantitative fund management business with significant assets in fundamentally based quantitative strategies, and second, to develop further our presence in the U.S. market," Roman said in a statement on Thursday.

Numeric's management will keep an 18.3 percent stake in the business, but Man Group will have the right to buy them out five years after completion of the deal under an arrangement capped at $275 million.

The acquisition will need approval from Man Group shareholders and completion is expected in September.

As at March 31 2014, Man (Dusseldorf: MAN.DU - news) managed $55 billion.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by David Holmes)