The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that Sagard Holdings is buying Swiss boutique asset manager Unigestion's private-equity business, expanding its reach in a fast-changing market for private assets that is courting a new wave of wealthy individual investors. The Globe's James Bradshaw writes that Montreal-based Sagard, an alternative asset manager and subsidiary of the Desmarais family's Power Corp. of Canada, is merging Unigestion's private equity manager with its own, adding $12.5-billion of private equity assets (all figures U.S.). The combined $23-billion private equity business will focus on investments in funds and co-investment with fund partners, as well as the burgeoning secondary market for buying and selling stakes in existing funds. Unigestion's non-private-equity businesses are not part of the deal. The companies did not disclose the deal's financial terms, but it is Sagard's largest acquisition yet. "It gives us globally relevant scale," Sagard chairman Paul Desmarais III told The Globe. "This industry is reaching a kind of maturity, and so consolidation in the space has just accelerated so much." After the deal closes, Sagard will have more than $44-billion of assets under management.