Ignis Asset Management and Castle Hill Asset Management form strategic partnership

–  Creation of a specialist credit manager with more than $2.0 billion of gross AUM
–  Castle Hill Total Return Fund also launched with approximately $50 million of seed capital
Ignis Asset Management is delighted to announce that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Castle Hill Asset Management. Castle Hill is a specialist credit investment manager with more than $2.0 billion of gross assets under management. These assets include sub-advisory mandates from Ignis Asset Management invested across two leveraged loan portfolios as well as one long-short credit portfolio.
Castle Hill is also delighted to announce the simultaneous launch of the Castle Hill Total Return Fund, a hedge fund focused on opportunistic credit strategies and capital structure arbitrage. The Total Return Fund has been seeded with approximately $50 million of capital by Castle Hill employees and associates.
Castle Hill, which is majority employee-owned, is a US- and UK-based asset management company consisting of nine highly experienced founding members. Brian Bassett, chairman, and Jaime Vieser, chief executive officer, are the co-principles of the investment manager. Brian and Jaime are joined by Craig Abouchar, Vikram Govindan, Philip Grose, Ross Mandeville, Sven Olson, Sasha Vlahcevic and Fraser Brown.  Ignis will hold a 49% interest in Castle Hill and will have two Ignis executives on the Board, Jonathan Polin and Chris Fellingham.

Brian Bassett, chairman of Castle Hill Asset Management, says;
“Castle Hill Asset Management is thrilled to commence operations with Ignis as our partner. Having worked closely with the Ignis staff we are confident that we can benefit from Ignis’s strong infrastructure, deep relationships in the market and proven experience in managing joint-venture relationships.”
Jonathan Polin, sales and marketing director, Ignis Asset Management, says;
“We are delighted to be a significant shareholder in Castle Hill, which is an important strategic investment for us in this highly specialist area. Brian and his team have built up an excellent reputation in the market whilst working at Ignis and we are sure they will be successful in managing the assets we have out-sourced to them as well as gathering significant third party assets with us.”
 
Castle Hill Asset Management co-principle biographies:
Brian Bassett
Mr. Bassett is the Chairman and a co-principal of the Investment Manager. From April 2008 until December 2009, Mr. Bassett was Chief Investment Officer at Ignis Investment Management Limited (formerly Axial Investment Management Limited). For the three years prior to joining Ignis, Mr. Bassett managed the European Leveraged Finance platform at Deutsche Bank in London, with responsibility for Leveraged Finance Banking, Loan Capital Markets, Loan Sales / Syndicate and Investment Grade Acquisition Finance, having run the European High Yield Capital Markets business since moving to London in April 2000. Mr. Bassett originally joined Bankers Trust in New York in 1995 (later acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999) and worked in a variety of positions within the Leveraged Finance platform, including roles in Banking, High Yield Capital Markets and High Yield Sales and Trading. Mr. Bassett graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Economics.
Jaime Vieser
Mr. Vieser is a co-principal of the Investment Manager and a Member and Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Advisor. From October 2008 to December 2009, Mr. Vieser was a Portfolio Manager at Ignis Investment Management Limited (formerly Axial Investment Management Limited). From 2005 to October 2008, Mr. Vieser ran a proprietary trading desk for Deutsche Bank in London. Mr. Vieser was previously responsible for Deutsche Bank’s High Yield Sales, Trading and Research Group within the Global Markets division in London from 1998 to 2006. Mr. Vieser originally joined Bankers Trust in New York in 1994 (later acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999) and worked in the Leveraged Finance division, where he structured and executed leveraged loan and high yield bond transactions before moving to London in 1998. Mr. Vieser graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Economics and from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University with a Masters in Business Administration.