Britannic launches second specialist fund boutique, plans for more

Britannic Asset Management is to launch its second high alpha fund management joint venture boutique, located in Edinburgh and focused on the UK. Following the launch, the company plans to form up to ten more asset management joint ventures.

The new Edinburgh asset management boutique is a joint venture between Britannic and David Stevenson and Andrew Kelly, currently of SVM. The boutique will be entirely autonomous, free to follow its own investment process and style. Under the arrangement, Britannic will launch a UK Opportunities unit trust and a UK equity long short hedge fund. The funds will be run by Mr Stevenson and Mr Kelly, who currently manage the SVM UK Opportunities fund and SVM Saltire hedge fund. The products will be co-branded within the existing Britannic stable. The long-only fund will be launched with an initial investment of GBP20 million from Britannic Investment Managers and made available to the retail and institutional market places. It will be launched as soon as David Stevenson and Andrew Kelly's commitments to their current company are complete and after the new fund receives regulatory approval. Gavin Stewart, chief executive of Britannic Asset Management said: Our key strategic objective is to further strengthen our multi-specialist approach through increasing our range of quality propositions for clients in major asset classes. Key to our success in achieving this is to have a number of strategies that meet the demands of our principal distribution channels. With this in mind, the new Edinburgh boutique is not the end of Britannic's expansion ambitions. According to the Scotsman newspaper, Britannic has earmarked the formation of as many as ten more joint ventures. Gavin Stewart is believed to have held talks with other fund managers with the view to bringing in ten to 15 fund managers to help manage the company's recently expanded GBP35 billion portfolio.