The private-equity-backed shop that's poised to buy the assets of F-Squared is on the hunt for more deals.

"We're definitely looking for additional partners," Paul Ingersoll, CEO of Cedar Capital, tells MFWire. "We're looking for intelligent, differentiated asset managers that would benefit from a higher level of distribution capabilities."

The goal, Ingersoll adds, is for Cedar to have "innovative managers of different asset classes, a sufficient number and sufficient range of partners to offer portfolios comprised entirely of [Cedar's] partners' products."

Cedar grew out of ETF strategist GoodHarbor. Ingersoll says that, as they built out distribution, compliance, and other non-portfolio management capabilities, they realized that other shops could take advantage of those, too. GoodHarbor took on some PE backers and created a new parent organization, Cedar. Cedar owns a stake in a mutual fund shop, River North, for which Cedar also handles distribution. Cedar also has a line of mutual funds, the Leland Funds, that are subadvised by outside shops. They've teamed up with Innovator for an ETF. And last year Cedar backed two former top Windhaven executives in creating another ETF strategist, Broadmeadow. (Broadmeadow, in turn, is the Cedar piece that will buy the assets of fellow ETF strategist F-Squared, if all goes as plan later this month.)

"We're looking to continue down that path with asset managers that we can offer value-added distribution," Ingersoll says. "We were setting up this business model over the last couple of years."

In some cases, like River North, the Cedar folks may step in purely in a distribution role while letting their allies do their thing. In other cases, like with F-Squared, Cedar will take on a bigger and broader role. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE