Icelandic remnant boosts Williams de Broe's staff, assets under management. U.K. investment advisory Williams de Broe has agreed to buy the assets and investment team of London-based Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Investment Management, a boutique private bank owned by Reykjavík, Iceland-based Kaupthing Bank, which went into receivership about two weeks ago.

Williams de Broe, a subsidiary of London-based holding company Evolution Group, picks up Kaupthing Singer's 45 staffers and roughly $2.4 billion in assets -- of which it expects to hold on to about $1.3 billion for a total, give or take, of $4 billion in assets for Williams de Broe.

Pennies on the pound

"We have deliberately structured the group to have a strong and highly liquid balance sheet," says Evolution's CEO Alex Snow, who also heads Williams de Broe. "This, combined with no debt, supports our aim of becoming a custodian of choice for clients and counterparties during these turbulent market conditions."

Kaupthing collapsed as a result of a run on U.K. deposits held by Kaupthing Singer's retail-banking subsidiary Kaupthing Edge. That, Kaupthing says in a valedictory press release on 9 October 2008, was triggered by the shakiness of Kaupthing's home-market rival Landsbanki.

Kaupthing paid about $700 million for Singer & Friedlander in 2005; William de Broe is picking it up for somewhere between $7 million and $10 million, according to U.K. press reports.

London-based fund manager Thomas Miller Investment plans to buy Kaupthing Singer's Isle of Man-based investment operations. -FWR

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