U.S. alts firm, Swiss PB in transatlantic merger

Thomas Coyle

9 September 2008

HF specialist Fairfield Greenwich has tied in with Banque Benedict Hentsch. New York-based alternatives manager Fairfield Greenwich Group has merged with Geneva-based private bank Banque Benedict Hentsch to form Banque Benedict Hentsch Fairfield (BBHF), a Geneva-based, Swiss- and U.K.-regulated firm. The merger partners say the union gives clients of Banque Benedict Hentsch access to Fairfield Greenwich's fund platform while clients of Fairfield Greenwich get access to Banque Benedict Hentsch's wealth-management services.

BBHF has $18 billion in assets under management with about $16 billion of that amount coming from Fairfield Greenwich.

Roughly equal

"We believe that our partnership with a firm of and that the clients and investors of both groups will greatly benefit," says Hentsch, who is chairman of BBHF's board of directors. "Our combined companies will be able to offer both institutional and private investors a wide spectrum of integrated, innovative, tailored products and services."

This drive to diversification under the "wealth management" rubric may lead other alternatives managers to look for boutique partners like Banque Benedict Hentsch -- with a weak U.S. dollar and general market conditions in the U.S. bringing stateside firms more prominently into play.

"It all amounts to a chance for firms to selectively look for partners," says Nesvold.

BBHF has more than 150 employees in Geneva and Lugano in Switzerland; Greenwich, Conn., New York and Miami in the U.S., as well as in Hamilton in Bermuda, Rio de Janeiro, London, Madrid, Singapore and Beijing.

Banque Benedict Hentsch and Fairfield Greenwich will each place two members on their respective boards. Hentsch and Robert Pennone, another co-founder of Banque Benedict Hentsch, will become directors of Fairfield Greenwich; Charles Murphy, head of Fairfield Greenwich's strategy and capital-markets business, and Mark McKeefry, Fairfield Greenwich's COO and general counsel, will join the board of BBHF. -FWR

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