Nick Evans, editor, EuroHedge
Even those predicting a sharp pick-up in corporate finance activity in the independent asset management world in 2007 could not have foreseen quite such a hectic start to the year.
The first few weeks of the year have brought a flurry of action - spanning acquisitions, buyouts, IPOs and fund flotations - that signals a dramatic acceleration in the reshaping of the hedge fund and asset management landscape that is taking place in Europe.
European Credit Management, a specialist credit investment firm set up just eight years ago by three former Merrill Lynch bankers and which now has s20 billion of assets under management, has sold a 70% stake to Wachovia for some £500 million.
The long-established team at Julius Baer Investments in London are going independent in a management buyout that will see the Swiss group retaining a 10% stake in a firm newly renamed as...