Lord Michael Hintze, who recently sold the majority of his credit-focused investment firm CQS to a unit of Manulife Financial Corporation (Manulife), has begun initial preparations for the launch of a new hedge fund firm, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The report cites registry filings as revealing that UK and Jersey entities owned by the Australian-British investor changed their names to Deltroit Asset Management towards the end of last year after Hintze agreed to sell CQS, which he led for over 20 years.

Deltroit, the name of Hintze's roughly 2,500-hectare (6,178-acre) farmland estate in Australia, also filed for UK branding trademarks in December, describing its activities as portfolio management, provision of hedge funds and investment advice.

Hintze’s flagship Directional Opportunities fund and certain related mandates were not included in Manulife’s deal to buy CQS’s credit platform, which has about $13.5bn in AUM, with CQS and Manulife stating in November that Hintze was planning to establish his own investment firm to continue managing the hedge fund.