Marshall Wace, a leading long/short European hedge fund manager, provides innovative investment opportunities to sophisticated investors worldwide. Looking to diversify their fund investor base with permanent capital, Marshall Wace called on the innovation of Merrill Lynch. Acting as joint bookrunner, we engineered a market-leading structure to launch MW TOPS, the largest-ever IPO of a closed-ended hedge fund. Global Markets & Investment Banking and Global Private Client worked together to help raise $2.1 billion entirely outside the U.S. In the process, we tapped a new capital market that meets the needs of hedge fund issuers and investors...and that's the long and the short of it.