Highland Capital Management [profile] is pouring resources into a new investment platform. Watch for the Dallas-based mutual fund shop to add staff, technology, tools, and other resources to the effort.

"All this boils down to ensuring that we have the right platform in place to compete and also to provide solutions that best meet our clients' needs," Michael Gregory, managing director and head of healthcare credit and equity at Highland, tells MFWire. "The daily liquid alternative space has expanded dramatically in the last five years."

Gregory will serve as global head and chief investment officer of the new platform, called Highland Alternative Investors. He will continue to lead the Highland's healthcare credit and equity efforts, and he will continue to serve as lead PM for the Highland Long/Short Healthcare Fund.

"We will also make a number of new hires as we enhance this platform," Gregory says, pointing to risk management and trading as two possible hiring areas, while clarifying that "nothing's set in stone." "As the plan is executed on over the next year, you should expect incremental hires."

The first part of building out the new platform, Gregory says, will involve "providing greater resources", including new tools and technology, to Highland's investing teams.

"We have built out a strong lineup of core alternative funds. The primary benefit will be directed towards improving the performance, and the performance repeatability, of these funds," Gregory says. "It's a cross-disciplinary effort ... It is and will be a substantial component of our resources."

Highland now has about $20 billion in assets under management and about 210 employees, after 21 years in business. Its liquid alternatives business, Gregory says, has seen an "explosion" of growth, from $1.5 billion about three years ago to roughly $5 billion today. 

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