The local funds management industry is proving to be a hive of activity this year even outside the shock events at Hunter Hall International.
Street Talk can reveal Westpac Banking Corp has EY Australia in its corner and plans to dispatch formal sale documents for its Ascalon Capital Managers division in early April.
That neatly co-incides with the end of Westpac's first half on March 31.
EY will work with Gilbert + Tobin partner Peter Cook on the process to help the bank assesses a range of options for funds management incubator including a distribution partnership, partial selldown or entire sale.
Ascalon's stable of boutiques includes Regal Funds Management., Deepwater Capital, Above the Index Asset Management, RV Capital, Athos Capital, Morphic Asset Management and Seyon Asset Management.
A spokesman for Westpac's funds arm declined to comment.
Rivals will be interested to look under the bonnet at Ascalon as several including Bennelong Funds Management and Pinnacle Investment management are in growth mode.
Elsewhere in funds management, Street talk understands Macquarie Asset Management's portfolio managers James Dougherty and Liam Donohue are headed to Challenger's Fidante Partners.
They will set up a new small-cap fund at the incubator, which already houses about 18 firms including NovaPort Capital, an active manager specialising in smaller companies.
This column foreshadowed that Macquarie had lost Dougherty and Donohue.
Fidante may be seeking to replace Arete Investment Partners which focussed on stocks in the small and mid-cap sector. That firm shut its doors in late 2015.
A Challenger spokesman declined to comment.
