NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Rohatyn Group (“TRG” or the “Firm”), a specialized asset management firm focused on emerging markets, today announced that it has acquired an Alternative Emerging Markets multi-manager (“AEM”) business that allocates capital to a select group of emerging and frontier market investment managers. Effective today, portfolio managers Kit Boyatt and Christian Frei, along with members of their investment team, are joining the Firm. TRG is acquiring this business from Lazard Asset Management LLC.
The AEM business presents a strong strategic fit with TRG’s focus on structural inefficiencies and special opportunities. Nicolas Rohatyn, TRG’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “We believe that each investor’s individual objectives and constraints demand a range of options to access the rich set of growth and alpha opportunities present in emerging markets. TRG has thus purposefully sought out thoughtful, non-traditional approaches to complement, or even replace, core allocations. Our new AEM team’s investment strategy offers a unique alternative to a conventional, benchmarked equity investment program that we find highly attractive.”
The transaction marks the first time that TRG will offer a multi-manager product, which is a natural extension of its ‘global perspective, local insights’ philosophy. Mr. Frei explained, “As talent has migrated from sell-side and traditional asset managers to launch funds in local markets, the range of options available to investors has ballooned to over 500 emerging and frontier market-focused funds, managing in excess of US$200 billion. Using less high-profile specialist managers in markets that are culturally and structurally hard to penetrate provides us with an information edge that a large centralized firm located in a major financial center would find hard to replicate. We make it our business to enlist such rare skill sets and embed them in a mosaic of emerging and frontier market excellence.”
As a final consideration for the fit of AEM within TRG’s overall range of capabilities, AEM complements TRG’s beyond-BRIC strategy with exposure to the larger emerging markets. Mr. Rohatyn noted, “Each new differentiated vantage point from which we view emerging markets increases overall coverage and visibility, enhancing our level of insight and the quality of decision making across the firm.”
Mr. Boyatt commented, “In our experience the vibrancy and flexibility of smaller, independent investment managers is particularly well suited to the persistent evolution of frontier and emerging capital markets. The Rohatyn Group marries the dynamism of these boutiques with the institutional foundation and standards of the firms where TRG’s leadership team built their careers. It is the ideal home for our approach.”
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About TRG
Founded in 2002, The Rohatyn Group is an emerging markets focused asset management firm headquartered in New York, with offices around the globe including Boston, Singapore, Rotorua, London, Buenos Aires, Mumbai, Montevideo, Lima, São Paulo, New Delhi and Mexico City. For more information, please visit www.rohatyngroup.com.