End of the Road For Ivy Asset Management and Its Employees

The final shoe has dropped for Ivy Asset Management and its remaining staff. Parent BNY Mellon reportedly laid off Ivy employees and will seek to transfer the fund of hedge funds' remaining business to two sister companies, Mellon Global Alternative Investments and EACM Advisors.

The closure was reported late Wednesday by Pensions & Investments. It follows the January resignation of Chief Executive Sean Simon (whose father had founded Ivy and sold it to BNY in 2000) after three years in which assets under management collapsed from a peak of more than $15 billion at the end of 2006 to an estimated $2.5 billion currently, according to P&I.

BNY Mellon said in January it would begin a "strategic review" of what to do with Ivy's "various products, skills and capabilities." The parent also placed Ivy under the authority of alternative investments chief Phil Maisano, who also oversees Mellon Global Alternative Investments and EACM Advisors.

A New York Labor Department layoff notice dated Feb. 11 names Ivy as the employer in a "plant layoff" affecting 60 out of 83 employees in Oyster Bay, L.I. and New York City. The document says the layoff would "commence on 5/13/2010 and end on 9/30/2010."