U.S. hedge fund Fairfield, Swiss private bank merge

By Paritosh Bansal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group has merged with Swiss private bank Banque Benedict Hentsch, bringing their combined assets under management to more than $18 billion.

The deal will allow Fairfield's clients to access Banque Benedict Hentsch's (BBH) suite of wealth management services and provide it a broader base of operations within Switzerland, according to a letter by Fairfield founding partner Andres Piedrahita to investors.

BBH gains added products and infrastructure support from the deal and the combined company will try to grow the private bank, the companies said in a statement.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Geneva-based BBH, which was founded in 2004, serves institutional and private clients in areas such as banking, securities, foreign exchange, tax and estate planning, they said.

BBH was founded by Benedict Hentsch, who comes from a family that has provided banking services in Geneva for seven generations over 200 years.

"The Fairfield Greenwich team is very eager to be able to work with BBH to deliver elite, complementary alternative asset and wealth management products and services to our combined client base," Piedrahita wrote.

The Swiss company will be renamed Banque Benedict Hentsch Fairfield Partners SA. BBH and Fairfield Greenwich will each have two members from the other sitting on their respective boards, they said.

New York-based Fairfield, founded in 1983, offers various alternative investment vehicles such as fund-of-funds, single manager hedge funds and real estate funds. It had about $16.6 billion in client and firm assets under management as of June 2008.

(Editing by Jacqueline Wong)