Managers from Ignis Investment Management spun-off from the UK manager this month to form Castle Hill Asset Management. Castle Hill has concurrently launched its first hedge fund, the Castle Hill Total Return Fund, with $50 million in seed money. The new long/short hedge fund focuses on opportunistic credit strategies and capital structure arbitrage.
Besides the Total Return Fund, Castle Hill Asset Management also manages assets from Ignis, including a leveraged long-only fund and an unleveraged long/short fund for a total of $2 billion in total assets managed. Castle Hill’s founding principals include Chairman Brian Bassett and CEO Jaime Vieser. Before co-founding the firm, Mr. Bassett was the CIO at Ignis and before that managed Deutsche Bank’s European Leveraged Finance platform in London. Mr. Vieser was previously a Portfolio Manager at Ignis and before that he led a proprietary trading desk at Deutsche Bank.
Ignis retains a 49% stake in the firm, while Castle Hill’s partners own the rest. According to a press release, Brian Bassett commented: “Castle Hill Asset Management is thrilled to commence operations with Ignis as our partner. Having worked closely with the Ignis staff we are confident that we can benefit from Ignis’s strong infrastructure, deep relationships in the market and proven experience in managing joint-venture relationships.” |
