The team at a niche fixed income boutique is looking for a strategic partner.

S. Sean Kelleher Austin Atlantic Asset Management President, Portfolio Manager

Sean Kelleher, president and PM at Austin Atlantic Asset Management, confirms that they're looking to work with a bigger firm to boost their marketing and distribution capabilities. Kelleher says they'd consider different types of partnerships, including fund adoptions (with Austin Atlantic staying on as subadvisor) or even outright mergers.

"We need to be more strategic and accelerate our distribution capabilities," Kelleher tells MFWire.

Coral Gables, Florida-based Austin Atlantic specializes in the repo and financing side of the fixed income world. They have about $600 million in AUM: two-thirds of that is in their flagship mutual fund, AAMCO UltraShort Financing Fund (REPOX), while the rest is in SMAs and a subadvisedmutual fund, the AMF Large Cap Equity Fund. Down the line, with the right partner, Kelleher says he's open to launching new flavors of Austin Atlantic's flagship strategy.

"We're really an enhanced cash product. Everything around us yields substantially less," Kelleher says. "We're going to outperform in an environment where rates are close to zero and the Fed's just holding steady."

Historically, the Austin Atlantic team had what Kelleher describes as a "niche distribution strategy," offering their strategies to depository institutions "for their actual balance sheet." Yet that marketplace has changed in the decade since the financial crisis, Kelleher says, pointing to regulations and to changing knowledge among those depository institutions.

"It was clear that we kind of needed to reposition our product line," Kelleher says. "We have retooled the product line so that it fits within the regulatory constraints that now exist within these institutions."

Now Kelleher wants to find a partner "who can accelerate the growth and build some real franchise value to the strategy." 

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