On Tuesday Fiera Capital closed on its acquisition of Apex Capital Management. "From an investment perspective, nothing changes," Fiera's U.S. division chief, Ben Thompson, tells MFWire.

Benjamin S. Thompson Fiera Capital Global Asset Management President and Chief Executive Officer

"It's an exciting milestone," Thompson says of the deal closing this week.

Three months ago publicly-traded, Montreal-based Fiera unveiled a $145-million deal to buy Dayton, Ohio-based Apex. Apex is a growth equity investing shop, with one mutual fund of its own and another that it subadvises. When the deal was announced, Thompson told MFWire that mutual funds and subadvisory work were both key parts of Fiera's U.S. expansion plans. And Apex chief Nitin Kumbhani, now vice chairman and chief of growth equity strategies for Fiera's U.S. division, told MFWire at the time that he is "hell-bent on growing this firm" and that hopes to expand into the value equity side of investing.


"We'll begin to work more closely as a team," Thompson says. "We'll build linkages to the rest of the Fiera organization."

"Investment teams remain semi-autonomous within the organization," Thompson adds.

For mutual fund and subadvisory work, Thompson says, the Fiera folks "will be looking for core leadership from the Apex team."

"There are a number of strategies internally that we'd essentially like to see incubated and launched," Thompson says.

In terms of staff, Thompson foresees expanding Fiera's U.S. team "within core infrastructure areas" to support growth, though the hirings won't be concentrated in a specific area.

"There's no significant areas where we feel under-resourced," Thompson says.

As for the possibility of more U.S. acquisitions, Thompson notes that Fiera's expansion in Canada has been driven by both organic growth and targeted acquisitions. 

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