Forum Financial Group says it has sold its investment advisory business for the Maine and New Hampshire TaxSaver Bond Funds to Integrity Mutual Funds – a mutual fund management company based in Minot, North Dakota – to concentrate on fund services.
“This move allows Forum to fully focus on its core business of providing comprehensive investment fund services from our operations centers in Maine, Bermuda and Poland. Forum has been in the bond fund advisory business since 1989, and is pleased to know that Integrity will continue our tradition of solid fund management and will continue to fulfill the goals each of these notable funds have met while under Forum management,” explains John Y. Keffer, Forum’s President.
“We are pleased to be significantly expanding the scope of our investment management activity,” adds Robert Walstad, Chairman and CEO of Integrity. “Obtaining the management rights to the Maine and New Hampshire municipal bond funds, along with our recent acquisition of the two Canandaigua National Bank Funds in upstate New York and the pending acquisition of the four Willamette Funds in Oregon have transformed us from a regional firm in the upper Midwest to more of a national firm with the ability to offer our shareholders and other investors a much broader, diversified family of funds.”
The agreement, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close in late September.
Forum Financial Group services mutual, hedge and offshore funds from the United States, Poland and Bermuda, with fund administration, distribution, fund and partnership accounting, transfer agency, shareholder services and custody.
Integrity Mutual Funds says the two funds it is acquiring have combined assets of about $50 million. The fund portfolios will be managed by Monte Avery, who also manages Integrity’s six existing tax exempt municipal bond funds. Integrity Mutual Funds has assets under management of over $300 million and is publicly traded over the OTC Bulletin Board. With its subsidiaries, ND Capital, ND Money Management, ND Resources, and Ranson Capital Corporation, the firm currently sponsors, manages, and advises eleven mutual funds.