DALLAS - Minnesota-based Ehlers Companies is expanding into Colorado with the acquisition of Public Finance Associates, a small financial advisory services firm facing the challenges of a more demanding regulatory environment.
The combined firm has already worked on its first deal, a $42 million competitive sale of general obligation bonds for Cherry Creek School District on Oct. 3.
James S. Harrington, president of Public Finance Associates, has run the company in the Denver suburb of Centennial since 2002. Harrington cited the new regulatory rules as a motivator for joining Ehlers.
"The timing was right to align with another strong public finance firm given the new Security and Exchange Commission's Municipal Advisor Rule," Harrington said. "Ehlers Companies shares the same core values that we regard as important and offers a wider scope of services for our clients."
Ehlers spokesman Timothy Schram said the acquisition is seen as an opportunity to add Colorado to the company's Midwest base, where it ranked third in the region among financial advisory firms in the first half of 2014 with $1.1 billion of deals.
"Potentially, you're going to see more of these acquisitions," Schram said. "A lot of the smaller firms are merging with larger firms or leaving the business."
Ehlers chairman Mike Harrigan called the deal an important strategic opportunity to offer independent public finance options in Colorado."
"This partnership adds to our capacity and offers our services to even more communities in the Midwest and beyond," Harrigan said.
Ehlers Companies provides has more than 800 hundred local, regional and state government client throughout the upper Midwest with headquarters in the Minneapolis suburb of Roseville, Minn. The firm also has offices in Waukesha, Wis., and Lisle, Ill.
