Hedge fund placement agents Liability Solutions and MIT Associates have announced plans to merge under the name Liability Solutions, creating one o
Hedge fund placement agents Liability Solutions and MIT Associates have announced plans to merge under the name Liability Solutions, creating one of the largest capital-raising firms in the hedge fund industry with offices in London, Geneva and New York.
“Institutional investors are driving a requirement that hedge funds be of larger size which is, in turn, increasing demand for additional marketing resources,” says Liability Solutions chief executive Richard Watkins.
“For many funds, including those with assets over USD1bn, it is more efficient and economic to retain the services of firms such as ours. As specialised marketers, we have penetrated the institutional marketplace and have access to investors that has taken years to develop.”
Liability Solutions and MIT Associates have between them raised and consulted on more than USD12bn in hedge fund assets since their respective establishment in 2000 and 1987. The combined firm offers access to more than 1,200 institutional investors worldwide, with particular focus on the US, Europe and the Middle East.
In the US and Europe, institutional coverage encompasses funds of funds, endowments, pension funds and private banks, and in the Middle East sovereign wealth funds, private investment funds and banks. The combined firm will have 15 marketing professionals, supported by a team that produces research on individual hedge funds including regularly updated analysis and commentary.
“Our new organisation will have the capacity to represent multiple funds with non-competing strategies and provide them with marketing services and investor access that few other firms in our business can,” says Mike Finnell, who will become president of Liability Solutions Inc, the US-based broker-dealer subsidiary of Liability Solutions, on completion of the merger.
“The industry has grown in dollars and numbers very considerably in the last few years and capital raising has become considerably more competitive – and even more so with the currently very difficult market conditions – with several thousand hedge funds competing on a permanent basis for the attention of institutional investors. Hedge funds need access to an investor base that is diverse both geographically and by style, and we offer that.”
Adds Watkins: “Through our extensive knowledge of the hedge fund industry, Liability Solutions is uniquely positioned to provide useful and comprehensive information to investors seeking to select managers. We offer an institutional research product on the funds that we represent, producing regularly updated analyses and commentary.”
Under the merger, MIT Associates will assume management of Liability Solutions Inc, and will be responsible for institutional marketing and the development of distribution relationships with hedge fund managers in North America.
Finnell and his long-time associate, Drew Otocka, will join the board of directors of the Liability Solutions parent company and Peter Hamilton, currently managing partner of MIT Associates, will become head of sales for Liability Solutions Inc.
