The merger left Fortis with two fund of hedge fund providers, and IAM’s management saw an opportunity to take the business back to its foundations as an independent boutique, according to Morten Spenner, the group’s CEO. “We did also have some successes with [ABN Amro], but we saw the opportunity in light of the larger corporate situation with respect to Fortis and ABN,” he said.
“And the fact was that at the end of the day they had two fund of hedge funds players of very different styles. And that wasn’t in the interest of the big corporates and it wasn’t in the interest of us. So there seemed to be an opportunity to take the company back to its independent roots and really allow ourselves to take the company forward as we saw most fitting,” said Mr Spenner.
Jeffries International, the US investment bank, and Apax Partners founder Sir Ronald Cohen also took stakes.
Independence means that IAM can better promote its speciality in creating bespoke fund of hedge fund portfolios for its clients, according to Mr Spenner.
“We are not as product-driven as other people are,” he said. “So that’s why it’s important to us that we have a deep dialogue with our existing clients, as well as with our potential clients, because we need to have that in order to appreciate how to create solutions for them.”
This dialogue was hard to achieve when the company was “one product on a shelf” at ABN. “I think one of the things that we discovered was, it’s not always the case that size is that helpful, what we really need, because we’re sort of a specialist boutique, is more direct contact with end clients and a more specialised sales force,” Mr Spenner said. “And that’s one of the things we’ll be looking at as we take the company forwards."
See Grand design for an interview with william De Vijlder of fortis investments
