Ballast Capital Management and Investcorp Form Strategic Partnership

NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --Investcorp, the alternative asset manager, and Ballast Capital Management, a hedge fund manager based in New York, announced today that they have formed a strategic partnership. Ballast, which specializes in long-short equity, is the latest addition to Investcorp's single manager platform.

Ballast is led by Robert M. Kaynor, Chief Investment Officer, and Ryan M. O'Sullivan, President.  The team brings more than 40 years of combined long-short equity investing experience, as well as demonstrated expertise in successfully managing assets in varying market environments.  Mr. Kaynor and Mr. O'Sullivan are joined initially by two other partners in the investment team.  At launch, Ballast will be composed of an eight person team.  The senior members of Ballast each have over ten plus years of experience in the industry.  Kaynor, and two of the investment team members, Mason Stark, and Joanna Wald, previously worked together at Ramius LLC, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund.

Ballast joins Investcorp's platform of hedge fund managers.  Within this platform, Investcorp provides its global client base with access to talented investment managers, supported by ongoing monitoring and operational oversight and control. Managers, in turn, benefit from the backing of a leading financial services organization, including Investcorp's global marketing and sales infrastructure and established client base.  

Investcorp's hedge fund business has approximately $4.7 billion in assets under management.  In addition to its single manager platform, Investcorp provides managed account and fund of funds solutions.

Deepak Gurnani, head of Investcorp's hedge fund business, said: "Ballast is an important addition to our single manager platform.  At Investcorp our focus has always been on alpha.  Ballast is a long-short hedge fund manager that has demonstrated its capabilities to generate alpha and strong returns with low market beta.   It is one of the few managers to have the ability to generate alpha on the long and short side.  Our alliance with Ballast follows our previous successful partnerships, and we expect to continue to add additional such relationships in order to offer our clients the opportunity to invest with best-in-class hedge fund managers."

Nick Vamvakas, head of development for Investcorp's single manager program, said: "We are excited about this partnership with Ballast.  Bob is well known in this space as one of the industry's top managers and he leads an established team with a wealth of collective experience.  We are pleased to be able to provide our global clients with access to this strategy, under such a well-established team."

Robert Kaynor, Ballast's CIO, said: "Partnership with Investcorp offers Ballast a unique opportunity to join Investcorp's well differentiated platform with proven global reach and experience.  We continue to see significant advantages for our strategy as stock correlations break down and alpha generation sets up readily.  We value the opportunity to align ourselves with a well known and stable organization. We look forward to leveraging our relationship with Investcorp to enhance our business growth and capabilities."

About Ballast

Ballast Capital Management LP is a Hedged Equity manager that seeks to generate positive, non-correlated, returns in all market environments.  Ballast focuses primarily on North American equities but may invest across the market cap spectrum.  BCM invests across all sectors and industry groupings.  Ballast Capital Management LP is located in New York City.  

About Investcorp

Investcorp is a leading provider and manager of alternative investment products.  It has offices in New York, London and Bahrain and is publicly traded on the Bahrain Stock Exchange (INVCORP).  Investcorp has three business areas: corporate investment in the US, Europe and the Gulf, real estate investment in the US and global hedge funds.  Founded in 1982, Investcorp has grown to become one of the largest and most diverse alternative investment managers in terms of both product offerings and geography. As at June 30, 2010 Investcorp had $12.7 billion in assets under management.  N.A. Investcorp, LLC, a broker-dealer registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of FINRA, serves as placement agent to the Investcorp funds.

Further information is available at www.investcorp.com

SOURCE Investcorp