Deephaven Capital Management veteran Matthew Halbower has launched his Pentwater Capital Management with $700 million in assets, nine months after leaving Deephaven.

Halbower, who ran Minnetonka, Minn.-based Deephaven’s event-driven and distressed-asset strategies until December, opened Pentwater today. The fund will focus on Halbower's speciality, event-driven, as well as merger arbitrage.  

Reuters reports that Pentwater expects to more than double its assets to $1.5 billion by the end of the year. Such prime brokering heavy-hitters as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and UBS are to service the Chicago-based fund.