H2O Asset Management (H2O), a specialist in global macro multi-strategy investment management, is to acquire Arctic Blue Capital, a systematic commodity-focused manager, from Stable Asset Management. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
The deal brings together two highly complementary investment managers and is a response to increasing client demand for investment strategies suited to a changing inflationary environment.
H2O, which was founded in 2010 and currently manages USD14.6 billion on behalf of clients, will provide extensive infrastructure and operational support to enable Arctic Blue to pursue its next level of growth. Arctic Blue, which will continue to be led by CIO and founder Jean-Jacques Duhot, will add its flagship fund, the Arctic Blue Original Strategy, and its equity-focused Atlanterra Strategy, to the H2O distribution platform. Both trade a diversified portfolio of breakout, trend and reversal models across three time horizons – short, medium and long term.
The Arctic Blue strategy was launched in 2008 at the Canadian sovereign pension Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. After deployment at CIBC and Millennium Capital Partners, it was seeded as a standalone firm by Stable Asset Management in 2014.
Bruno Crastes, CEO of H2O, says: “Arctic Blue’s systematic commodity-focused strategies perfectly complement our existing suite of products. In fact, we already share a number of top tier clients and we look forward to increasing this number as a combined entity.”
Cyril Beriot (pictured), Head of Managed Accounts at H2O, adds: “This deal is timely given current market conditions. We expect the global economy to enter a reflationary phase over the short-to-medium term and our clients will now benefit from a suite of high-quality strategies across all asset classes that are perfectly suited to this new environment.”
Jean-Jacques Duhot, Founder of Arctic Blue, says: “Joining with H2O will enable us to bring the best possible investment strategies in commodities to new and existing investors. Like H2O, we are a specialist team combining strong expertise in our sector to deliver the best returns for our investors. We look forward to pursuing our next level of growth as part of the H2O team.”
Erik Serrano Berntsen, CEO of Stable, says: “Our partnership with Arctic Blue has seen the team grow from a start-up manager to a globally recognized systematic asset management firm. This transaction represents the exit of another successful seed investment for Stable, as we turn our focus towards building our next portfolio of specialist managers through the Stable Seed Fund. We couldn’t have found a better partner than H2O to continue supporting their success and look forward to seeing Arctic Blue going from strength to strength.”
