New York (HedgeCo.net) – Alternative asset manager Investcorp and Ballast Capital Management, a hedge fund manager based in New York, have partnered up. Ballast, which specializes in long-short equity, is the latest addition to Investcorp’s single manager platform.
Ballast is led by Robert M. Kaynor, Chief Investment Officer, and Ryan M. O’Sullivan, President. The team brings more than 40 years of combined long-short equity investing experience, as well as demonstrated expertise in successfully managing assets in varying market environments. Mr. Kaynor and Mr. O’Sullivan are joined initially by two other partners in the investment team. At launch, Ballast will be composed of an eight person team. The senior members of Ballast each have over fifteen plus years of experience in the industry. Kaynor, and two of the investment team members, Mason Stark, and Joanna Wald, previously worked together at Ramius LLC, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund.
Ballast joins Investcorp’s platform of hedge fund managers. Within this platform, Investcorp provides its global client base with access to talented investment managers, supported by ongoing monitoring and operational oversight and control. Managers, in turn, benefit from the backing of a leading financial services organization, including Investcorp’s global marketing and sales infrastructure and established client base.
Investcorp’s hedge fund business has approximately $4.7 billion in assets under management. In addition to its single manager platform, Investcorp provides managed account and fund of funds solutions.
Deepak Gurnani, head of Investcorp’s hedge fund business, said: “Ballast is an important addition to our single manager platform. At Investcorp our focus has always been on alpha. Ballast is a long-short hedge fund manager that has demonstrated its capabilities to generate alpha and strong returns with low market beta. It is one of the few managers to have the ability to generate alpha on the long and short side. Our alliance with Ballast follows our previous successful partnerships, and we expect to continue to add additional such relationships in order to offer our clients the opportunity to invest with best-in-class hedge fund managers.”
Nick Vamvakas, head of development for Investcorp’s single manager program, said: “We are excited about this partnership with Ballast. Bob is well known in this space as one of the industry’s top managers and he leads an established team with a wealth of collective experience. We are pleased to be able to provide our global clients with access to this strategy, under such a well-established team.”
Robert Kaynor, Ballast’s CIO, said: “Partnership with Investcorp offers Ballast a unique opportunity to join Investcorp’s well differentiated platform with proven global reach and experience. We continue to see significant advantages for our strategy as stock correlations break down and alpha generation sets up readily. We value the opportunity to align ourselves with a well known and stable organization. We look forward to leveraging our relationship with Investcorp to enhance our business growth and capabilities.”
Editing By Alex akesson
