(Bloomberg) -- John Melsom, who managed money for Omni Partners for about 15 years, is striking out on his own to run an independent investment firm.

The money manager has bought out Omni’s financial interest in the $900 million fund, which focuses on mergers and acquisitions opportunities, and is moving it plus his investment team to his London-based firm, Kryger Capital. The switch over is happening today.

“It’s a much cleaner structure for investors where the person that’s managing the risk on your investment is also the person that controls the company,” Melsom said in an interview. “It also gives us more flexibility in terms of growing the business and expanding the team.”

The move contrasts with a rising trend of smaller firms and managers pooling resources to combine or to join bigger investment firms, as hedge fund clients migrate toward established operators.  

Event-driven money managers are drawing investors’ interest after returning an average 16% last year amid a flurry of deal making, outperforming a 9.7% rise across all hedge funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Such vehicles raised about $3.7 billion in 2021 when the entire industry received about $14 billion in inflows, data from eVestment shows. 

Melsom, who is based in Bermuda with three other investment professionals, will continue to run his firm’s operations and marketing team out of London where he employs seven people.  

The Omni Event Fund, which has been renamed the Kryger Fund, gained 8.5% last year and was up 3.2% during the first two months of 2022. The strategy that he has run since 2007 has only had one down year in 2014 when it lost 3.5%, according to an investor document. 

After the separation, Omni will continue to run its strategies focused on direct lending and private credit, according to its website.

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