Private equity manager White Oak Equity Partners acquired a minority stake in newly launched hedge fund manager Blueshift Asset Management.
White Oak declined to disclose the terms of the Dec. 31 transaction, including the size of the ownership stake it purchased in Blueshift Asset Management, said spokeswoman Amanda Klein.
White Oak's investment enabled Mani Mahjouri, Blueshift's CEO and chief investment officer, to buy the intellectual property of the trading business of financial technology company Tradeworx and establish Blueshift, according to news releases Tuesday from Tradeworx and White Oak.
Mr. Mahjouri was CIO of the asset management activities at Tradeworx and brought the entire team with him when he established Blueshift.
"As a stand-alone entity, we are very excited to have the opportunity to focus entirely on the pursuit of alpha generation on behalf of our investors," Mr. Mahjouri said in the Tradeworx release.
Blueshift started trading its quantitative hedge fund strategy, which incorporates statistical arbitrage and high-frequency trading, earlier this month with $300 million under management, predominantly from institutional investors.
"We believe the Blueshift team's longstanding collaborative history, extensive trading experience and unique approach to investing gives them a strategic advantage at an increasingly competitive time in quantitative investing," said Bruce Wilson, CEO of White Oak, in the company's release.
White Oak focuses on acquiring non-controlling, minority interests in hedge fund managers with less than $2 billion in assets under management.
White Oak "seeks to play a strategic role" in helping emerging hedge fund managers attract institutional investors and develop global distribution capability, the firm's release said.
Ms. Klein declined to provide White Oak's assets under management.
