A liquid alternatives specialist in Southern California is merging into a Gotham technology firm that focuses on alternative investments.

James Waldinger Artivest CEO, Founder

Today Marty Beaulieu, Matt Osborne, and James Waldinger confirmed that San Diego-based Altegris is merging into New York City-based Artivest. The combined firm will have 100 people servicing more than $3 billion in assets, and the firm will maintain offices in both cities.

The combined firm will use the Artivest name, though Altegris' mutual funds will keep the Altegris name. Artivest will continue to be privately held by employees, by Aquiline Capital Partners and Genstar Capital (the private equity firms behind Altegris), and by KKR and Peter Thiel's Thiel Capital. (Thiel is Artivest's earliest angel investor.) Pricing and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Waldinger, CEO and founder of Artivest, will continue to serve as CEO of the combined company. Beaulieu, executive chairman and CEO of Altegris, will become executive chairman of the combined firm. And Osborne, founder and chief investment officer of Altegris, will become chief investment officer of the combined firm.

Altegris and Artivest are already allies. Today's deal comes about six months after Altegris teamed up to, as Beaulieu described it at the time, "bring greater scale to qualified investors and their advisors who are looking to access investment solutions from many of the leading alternative investment managers in the industry." Altegris transitioned more than 20 different fund strategies and $1 billion of assets onto Artivest's digital platform as part of that partnership.

"Our strategic goals align and our value propositions are highly complementary," Waldinger states. "Altegris will expand our investment, operations, and distribution capabilities, immediately amplifying the power of our technology — and vice versa."

"We are making a long-term commitment to alternative investment innovation," Beaulieu states.

Thiel states that the deal "scales up a great team to serve an even broader range of investors."

Aquiline and Genstar spun Altegris out of Genworth in 2013. In 2016, MFWire reported that the PE firms put Altegris on the block and that Freeman & Co was the banker. Yet last year Beaulieu revealed that, after a strategic review, Aquiline and Genstar doubled down on their backing of Altegris. 

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