BOSTON (HedgeWorld.com)–Fortis Investments, the asset management arm of Belgian-Dutch Fortis banking and insurance group, plans to have its 14 worldwide investment teams develop alternative strategies.
These groups include Boston-based portfolio managers that are now fully integrated into the global organization. Fortis already has two types of alternative investment businesses.
One is a fund of funds operation run by a team out of Luxembourg. This group manages three funds, two in relative value strategies and one all-strategy fund. These invest in managers worldwide, concentrating on those based in the United States and Europe.
Separately, the firm is building an internal single-manager hedge fund program. A long/short European equity, Ireland-domiciled fund is available, and an emerging markets fixed-income fund is about to be seeded in a managed account. Another three hedge funds are scheduled for this year.
“We want each of our investment centers to have the ability to manage both long-only and alternative techniques,” explained Patrick Van de Steen, global head of marketing. “In each team, we are building skills, research and systems so that people can manage both long-only and alternative.”
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