New York Life Investment Management agreed to buy the municipal bond firm Mariner Municipal Managers for an undisclosed amount, the company said this week.
Based in Princeton, N.J., Mariner Municipal Managers was founded in 2007 by Robert DiMella and John Loffredo, who previously headed BlackRock’s municipal management business.
With $377 million in assets under management and six employees including its principals, the division will be fused into New York Life’s MacKay Shields subsidiary, which manages $33 billion for pension funds and other institutional investors.
MacKay chief executive officer Osbert Hood in a statement called municipal bonds a “strategically important asset class.”
“We see the acquisition as a significant opportunity to add capabilities to complement our existing fixed-income business,” he said.
Loffredo and DiMella have been managing munis together for 15 years. Before joining BlackRock through the 2006 merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Management, both had worked at Merrill Lynch & Co. since the early 1990s.
“As we work our way toward a period of economic recovery, the opportunities for muni bonds as an asset class will only become greater,” Loffredo said in a statement.
