TRANSACTION SUMMARY

On 28 February, BlueCove Limited (“BlueCove”), the market-leading scientific fixed income manager, and Ares Management Corporation (“Ares”), the global alternative investment manager, announced that they have reached an agreement whereby Ares will acquire a minority equity stake in BlueCove with the option to acquire control of the business over a multi-year term. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

BlueCove has been purpose-built to play a leading role in the development of scientific fixed income asset management as a mainstream investment style. Scientific investing provides investors with both a complement and an alternative to the traditional, active discretionary investment process that has dominated active fixed income management for decades. Potential advantages for investors include an increased probability of repeatable outcomes, a technology-enabled increase in investment breadth, increased investment process transparency, excess returns that tend to exhibit a low correlation with those of discretionary managers, and a medium-term opportunity to harvest natural alpha from an underrepresented investment methodology. The partnership with Ares is expected to accelerate BlueCove’s growth and further cement its position at the forefront of the scientific fixed income space.

BLUECOVE

BlueCove is an institutional scientific fixed income asset manager with $1.8 billion of assets under management, as of February 28, 2023. It brings together market-leading fixed income industry investment, engineering, and business infrastructure professionals, with the specific purpose of researching and developing state-of-the-art scientific investment processes applicable to fixed income investment management. The firm was founded in 2018 by Hugh Willis and Alex Khein, previously Co-founder and CEO/Executive Chairman, and COO/CEO respectively of BlueBay Asset Management.

ARES MANAGEMENT

Ares Management Corporation is a leading global alternative investment manager offering clients complementary primary and secondary investment solutions across the credit, private equity, real estate, and infrastructure asset classes. Founded in 1997, Ares has grown rapidly to reach $352bn of assets under management and over 2,550 employees across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. Ares is listed on the New York stock exchange under the symbol ARES.

ROLE

SHP acted as financial adviser to BlueCove.