(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Michael Hintze is preparing to re-launch his hedge fund under Deltroit Asset Management in March, relinquishing the CQS brand he built over more than two decades.
The veteran hedge fund manager, who agreed to sell most of his CQS fund business to Manulife Investment Management last year, is expected to start trading with about $2 billion at Deltroit, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
His flagship CQS Directional Opportunities fund — which was excluded from the sale to Manulife — reported assets of $1.2 billion in a December investor letter seen by Bloomberg News. The remaining money for the spin out is under related investment mandates, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.
The move caps a challenging last four years for Hintze who is still recovering losses his hedge fund suffered in 2020. Since then, the firm has shuttered at least two money pools, scuttled an expansion plan, spun off non-core strategies and cut jobs to return to its credit-investing roots.
Manulife said in November it’s acquiring the CQS credit platform, which has about $13.5 billion of assets under management, and the CQS brand, in a deal that’s expected to close in early 2024.
Hintze, 70, owns Deltroit Station, a roughly 2,500-hectare (6,178-acre) farmland estate in his native Australia that has hosted British royals during overseas trips. Deltroit filed for UK branding trademarks in December, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
Hintze plans to use portfolio management technology and data platform Coremont, a spinout from Brevan Howard Asset Management, to help run his fund, one of the people said.
Representatives for Hintze and Coremont declined to comment.
CQS Directional Opportunities has made money every year since losing almost 35% in 2020, but it still remains about 2.3% below the net asset value it had before the slump, according to an investor letter seen by Bloomberg. The fund gained 6.7% in 2023.
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