FrontPoint Acquires Ivory Capital Group

FrontPoint Partners, the Greenwich, Conn., investment firm founded by former executives of Tiger Management and Soros Fund Management, is acquiring money manager Ivory Capital Group of Santa Monica.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but FrontPoint plans to launch two hedge funds -- the firm’s sixth and seventh funds -- that will be managed by Ivory Capital executives. Ivory Capital’s existing clients are expected to move their money to the new funds.

FrontPoint managing partner Phil Duff said the deal demonstrates that his firm’s strategy of offering managers a stake in the firm and providing legal, accounting and marketing services in exchange for a share of a fund’s management fees can attract mature businesses as well as start-ups.

The Ivory team consists of 14 professionals led by Curtis Macnguyen, who founded Ivory in 1998 and was formerly a partner of Siegler, Collery & Co.

Duff declined to specify how much money Ivory Group manages, but people familiar with the firm say it has about $300 million in client assets.

FrontPoint, which was founded in November 2000, plans to become one of the industry’s largest hedge fund groups. It wants to manage as much as $20 billion.

Whereas many industry giants have scaled back in recent years after suffering big losses, FrontPoint executives believe they can sustain growth by diversifying among several investment strategies.

In the last couple of years, the firm has amassed $1.5 billion in assets.

From Dow Jones/Associated Press