Virtus Investment Partners said it has agreed to acquire New York-based Westchester Capital Management, an “event-driven” investment strategist with $4.3 billion in assets under management.
Westchester Capital, located about 30 miles over the Connecticut border in Valhalla, New York, operates the $3.6 billion Merger Fund, created in 1989.
The publicly traded Virtus, which bills itself as a multi-boutique asset management business, said the deal, slated to close in the second half of 2021, would expand its offerings of alternative investment strategies by adding Westchester’s “differentiated, non-correlated strategies that invest in publicly announced events such as mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, spin-offs and other corporate reorganizations.”
Westchester’s managing partners and portfolio managers, Roy Behren and Michael Shannon, have signed long-term employment agreements with Virtus.
“Roy, Michael and their team have built Westchester Capital into the premier provider of event-driven strategies with a long, proven track record of attractive investment performance,” George R. Aylward, Virtus president and CEO, said in a statement. “This agreement gives us the opportunity to partner with a well-respected team and make their strategies available to a greater number of clients through our broad distribution platform. We are particularly pleased that The Merger Fund, which is a leader in non-correlated strategies as the first mutual fund devoted exclusively to merger arbitrage, will become one of the many distinctive funds we offer to the retail market.”
Also on Tuesday morning, Virtus reported fourth-quarter profits of $43.3 million, which was more than double its profits from the same quarter in 2019.
Virtus’ stock price was up nearly 8% shortly after the markets opened Tuesday morning, at $238.64 per share, which is near an all-time high.
