Sister companies Quay Partners and Stafford Timberland to merge brand identity as Stafford Capital Partners

February, 2014

Sister companies, Quay Partners and Stafford Timberland, are to work in partnership under the name Stafford Capital Partners, or ‘Stafford’. The two companies have been working together extensively since 2002, when Stafford Timberland was established in Quay Partners’ offices. Both companies have the same majority shareholders (Richard Bowley and Geoff Norman) and continue to be wholly management owned.

Combined, the new Stafford partnership has $2.6bn of assets under management, with a team of 26 people working across the infrastructure, private equity and timberland sectors from offices in Europe, the US and Australia.

The companies have always sought to benefit from the synergies of two companies investing in adjacent sectors of the alternative investment markets. With common clients who have a broad interest across alternative assets, a shared investment philosophy and physically co-located in London and Sydney, the strategic decision was taken to recognise this cooperation more formally by Quay Partners changing its trading name to Stafford.

Geoff Norman, Founding Partner of Stafford said: “Some institutional investors are now starting to combine their strategies across the different sectors in the alternatives market. The number of real asset mandates coming to market is just one example of this, and the desire to consolidate the number of managers employed is another.

While offering this breadth to investors, we have teams with specialist sector expertise which ensures the focus necessary to deliver returns to investors. There is a wealth of talent in Stafford and we are increasingly seeing the benefits of greater cooperation through increased investment deal flow, shared secondaries expertise, and a wide range of relevant experience amongst the team. We are convinced that this approach will be an important way that Stafford and its clients can benefit from the opportunities arising from the rapidly changing investment environment.”