Mitchell Appel and his team are about to snap up an alternative mutual fund.

Mitchell Appel Value Line Funds President

New York-based Value Line Funds [profile] is about take over Atlanta-based Alpha Capital Management's [profile] three-star, $19-million Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund. A filing last with the SEC confirms that the board of Advisor Series Trust (the Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund's home) has approved moving the fund into the new Value Line Defensive Strategies Trust within Value Line Investment Trust. If all is approved, the move will happen on June 10 or thereabouts.

MFWire could not immediately reach Alpha Capital founder and chief investment officer Brad Alford for comment on the deal. And Appel, CEO of Value Funds, declined to comment for this story.

InvestmentNews and Reuters both covered the news.

Alford has PMed the fund since inception five years ago. Though the filing last week does not mention Alford by name, it does confirm that, if the deal goes through, the Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund's "investment adviser and portfolio manager will also remain the same," as will the fund's expense ratio. Yet the fund would switch its accounting firm, administrator, custodian, distributor, legal counsel, and transfer agent.

Currently, Tait, Weller & Baker is the Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund's accounting firm. U.S. Bank is the custodian and transfer agent, and U.S. Bank's Quasar is the distributor. And Schiff Hardin provides legal counsel.

As for Value Line, its own EULAV Securities handles distribution. State Street is the administrator, custodian, and transfer agent. Pricewaterhouse Coopers is the accounting firm.

Alpha Capital also offers another mutual fund: the three-star, $20.8-million Alpha Opportunistic Alternatives Fund. That fund also launched in early 2011. 

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