Sir Ronald Cohen, co-founder of Apax Partners, is backing the management buy-out of ABN Amroâ??s former hedge fund arm International Asset Management (IAM).

London-based IAM is being bought back by its managers from Fortis, which acquired the operation last year as part of the break-up of ABN, in a leveraged deal also backed by Jefferies, the US merchant bank. The deal is valued in the low hundreds of millions of dollars, according to people involved in the transaction.

When Fortis took on the business from ABN it originally expected to merge it with Cadogan Management, the New York-based fund of hedge funds it acquired two years ago. But it is thought to have concluded it could make more by selling IAM.