Investcorp and Silverback Asset Management form strategic partnership

The firm has formed an alliance with successful specialist US hedge fund manager Silverback Asset Management. In the last two years Investcorp has partnered with two other respected hedge fund groups, Interlachen Capital Group and Cura Capital Management, as it develops its single manager platform.

Silverback joins Investcorp's platform of best-in-class hedge fund managers, through which it provides clients with access to talented investment managers, supported by ongoing monitoring and operational oversight and control. The managers in turn benefit from the backing of a leading financial services organisation, including Investcorp's global marketing and sales infrastructure and established client base.

The new partnership will be run by Elliot Bossen, the Chief Investment Officer of Silverback, who brings more than 20 years of investing experience in convertible bond arbitrage strategies, and demonstrated expertise in growing investment teams. Mr Bossen leads an initial team of five investment professionals, in addition to Andrew Chacos, Chief Operating Officer.

Investcorp's asset management business has approximately $5 billion in assets under management, of which approximately $2 billion is proprietary capital. In addition to its single-manager platform, Investcorp has a leading, internationally recognized hedge fund-of-funds programme within the asset management area.

Ibrahim Gharghour, Investcorp's managing director and co-head of asset management said: "Silverback is an important addition to our single-manager platform, which combines our world class investment monitoring, risk oversight and operational support infrastructure with some of the brightest talent in the hedge fund industry.

"We are long-time investors in Convertible Arbitrage strategies and find this space offers attractive opportunities for clients. As such, this partnership complements and further enhances our highly selective single-manager platform, which includes Fixed Income Relative Value and Global Multi-Strategy strategies."

Deepak Gurnani, Investcorp's managing director and co-head of asset management, commented: "We are excited by this partnership with Silverback. Elliot Bossen is well known as one of the industry's top convertibles managers. He leads an established team with a wealth of collective experience in trading, research and investment banking. Silverback also brings an existing systems and operations infrastructure. We are pleased to be able to provide our global clients with access to this strategy, under a well-established team."

Elliot Bossen, Silverback's Chief Investment Officer, said: "We are excited to partner with Investcorp, which has a long history of success as one of the leading global asset managers in alternative investments. For Silverback, this partnership represents a return to our roots of dedicated convertible arbitrage investing. In addition, the access to Investcorp's substantial base of global institutional and individual clients, combined with its growing U.S. institutional co-investment capital and leading risk-management support, will allow us to effectively manage our liquidity cycles while focusing fully on our top priority of generating superior returns for our investors."