(Bloomberg) -- Hedge fund billionaire Michael Hintze is taking steps to start a new investment firm after agreeing to sell the majority of his credit-focused money manager, CQS.

UK and Jersey entities for the Australian-British investor changed their names to Deltroit Asset Management near the end of 2023, when Hintze agreed to sell most of the London-based firm he’s led for more than two decades to a unit of Manulife Financial Corp., according to registry filings.

Deltroit also filed for UK branding trademarks in December, describing its activities include portfolio management, provision of hedge funds and investment advice. Hintze, 70, is the owner of the Deltroit Station, a roughly 2,500-hectare (6,178-acre) farmland estate in his native Australia that has hosted British royals during overseas trips.

A representative for Hintze declined to comment.

Hintze’s flagship Directional Opportunities fund and certain related mandates weren’t included in Manulife’s deal to buy CQS’s credit platform, which has about $13.5 billion of assets under management. CQS and Manulife said in November that Hintze planned to establish his own investment firm to continue managing the hedge fund.

Directional Opportunities reported a 35% slump in 2020 as its structured-credit bets imploded during the swings sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The fund manages about $1.2 billion, down from roughly $3 billion before the losses. It gained 22% in 2021, 16% in 2022 and an estimated 6.6% last year, according to an investor document seen by Bloomberg.

Read More: Hintze’s CQS Sale Caps Slow Decline for Hedge Fund Veteran

Hintze, a former Australian army captain, worked for both Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. before Brady Dougan, the former chief executive officer of Credit Suisse, hired him and later gave him $200 million to start his own firm in 1999. Five years later, Hintze returned $500 million to the Swiss bank and took full control of CQS, which managed almost $20 billion at its peak before the pandemic.

Deltroit’s London-based entity was originally set up in August under a name bearing the initials of Hintze before adopting Deltroit as its title in November, filings show. He’s listed as the only shareholder of the entity in the UK, where companies have to disclose beneficial ownership details. Deltroit’s entity in the crown dependency of Jersey, meanwhile, similarly changed its name to include Deltroit in December.  

Hintze, a member of the UK’s House of Lords and a longtime Conservative Party donor, bought the Deltroit Station estate in the Gundagai district of New South Wales in 2016 for less than A$17 million ($11.2 million), according to the Australian Financial Review. Two years later, he hosted King Charles and Queen Camilla at the estate while they were still Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.

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