Institutional investment consultant Cliffwater LLC formed a joint venture — Cliffwater Investments LLC — with Virtus Investment Partners that will offer alternative investment mutual funds.
Cliffwater Investments will design, select managers and run three mutual funds for Virtus as a subadviser — Virtus Alternative Total Solution, Alternative Income Solution and Alternative Real Assets Solution funds.
The mutual funds are in registration with the SEC.
Cliffwater Investments will use the same investment approach in managing the new mutual funds as Cliffwater LLC does in advising institutional clients on their portfolios, said Stephen L. Nesbitt, CEO of the consulting firm, in an interview. Cliffwater LLC already manages about $1 billion in discretionary strategies for some of its institutional clients and subadvises a hedge fund mutual fund for Principal Financial. Cliffwater LLC advises on $70 billion of institutional assets as a consultant.
“We are leveraging Cliffwater's expertise in alternative investments to develop open-architecture, multistrategy, multimanager alternatives funds,” said George R. Aylward, Virtus' president and CEO, in a news release. Mr. Aylward was not available for an interview.
