BMO Financial Group, together with Flavio Bartmann and Conrad Voldstad, have established U.S.-based Pallium Investment Management, an investment management company that will form and manage a Triple-A rated structured product company.

The initial activities of this company will be heavily focused on credit derivatives.

Currently in the process of recruiting select portfolio and credit managers, the new company will be headquartered in the Harborside Financial Center, Jersey City, N.J.

“We are pleased to be working with two of the top professionals in the global structured product company market as we continue to build our structured credit asset management business,” said Ellen Costello, vice chairwoman and global head of securitization and credit investment management of BMO’s investment banking group. “Conrad and Flavio created and managed the very first derivative products company internationally, and are very well known to us.”

Bartmann and Voldstad have had extensive careers in the global derivatives market, and BMO is also an active participant in the derivatives market and has an established track record in managing Triple-A rated structured investment vehicles. A Triple-A rated structured investment vehicle is a company that is structured by limiting its activities to making investments and taking risks that are consistent with the highest (Triple-A) debt ratings.

The principals are in the final stages of developing a proprietary capital model, which will be able to comprehensively evaluate the risks and benefits of new product lines.