Edelweiss and Ambit announced today that an Edelweiss group entity has agreed to acquire Ambit Alpha Fund, a category III Alternate Investment Fund with an AUM of over Rs 11 billion, and will be its new investment manager. The transaction is subject to due diligence and requisite regulatory approvals.

Rashesh Shah, chairman & CEO, Edelweiss Group said, ''We are seeing the financial savings of Indian investors shifting from hard assets like gold and real estate to financial instruments. This movement presents exciting opportunities in the rapidly growing asset management space. Ambit Alpha Fund is one of the market leading Alternate Investment Funds in the country and allows us to consolidate our market position in this business.''

This is the second asset management acquisition of Edelweiss Group in the recent past, having taken over JP Morgan's onshore mutual fund schemes a few months ago. The acquisition will further strengthen Edelweiss Group's Rs 350 billion Global Assets Management (GAM) business which includes the Group’s existing mutual funds, alternative assets management, multi strategy funds and assetreconstruction. This business has seen an over 40% growth over the last year.

Venkat Ramaswamy, executive director and co-head, Edelweiss Global Asset Management further said, ''Ambit Alpha Fund is complementary to our bouquet of offerings in the alternative investment fund business. Forefront (Edelweiss Multi Strategy Funds) that we acquired in 2014 has since grown over 10x, and has one of the best performing funds in this category.''

Shares of the company gained Rs 1.35, or 1.11%, to trade at  Rs 122.80.  The total volume of shares traded  was  177,064 at the BSE (9.31 a.m., Thursday).