GAM is to acquire Arkos Capital SA, a Lugano-based investment manager with assets under management of CHF664million as at 31 December 2011 reported Reuters this week. The deal, which will involve GAM purchasing 100 per cent of the issued shares in Arkos Capital, is expected to go through by the end of Q2 2012 subject to regulatory approval by FINMA. Specifically, under the terms of the deal, GAM will initially acquire 74.95 per cent of Arkos’s share capital with the remaining 25.05 per cent, currently held by Arkos management, to be acquired through deferred cash payments linked to the future development of the business. Arkos manages a range of liquid, transparent, low-volatility absolute return funds in its Talentum fund range. It currently has three funds, one of which, Talentum Emerging Alpha, uses a long/short equity strategy covering EMEA and Latin America. The other two funds, Talentum Activedge and Talentum Enhanced, use market neutral strategies with a focus on developed Europe.

 
The team uses a fundamental bottom-up approach to stock selection. Arkos also has a range of five SICAV UCITS-compliant funds, three of which are absolute return funds. David M Solo (pictured), CEO of GAM, said the Arkos deal was “fully in line with our growth strategy”. He added: “It has an outstanding track record of alpha generation and will substantially enhance and expand our in-house single manager offering.” Arkos’s CIO, Gianmarco Mondani, said that becoming a part of GAM would allow the firm to make a “great step forward, enabling us to offer our strategies to clients in new markets, such as Northern Europe, the US and Asia”.