The team at a publicly traded asset manager is preparing to more than double the size of their first ETF by merging a pair of mutual funds into that ETF.

Late last month, Alyssa Greenspan,

Teresa Mariani "Terry" Nilsen Hennessy Advisors, Inc. President, Chief Operating Officer, Director

president and CEO of Community Capital Management, LLC (CCM [profile]), and Neil Hennessy, CEO and chairman of Hennessy Advisors, Inc. [profile], revealed that Hennessy Advisors has agreed to buy CCM's two equity mutual funds, the CCM Core Impact Equity Fund and the CCM Small/Mid-Cap Impact Value Fund. Those two CCM funds, which have about $70 million in AUM combined, will be merged into the $45-million-AUM Hennessy Stance ESG ETF (STNC). (That ETF was formerly known as the Hennessy Stance ESG Large Cap ETF and was rebranded on April 28.)

Pending shareholder and board approval, the Hennessy-CCM deal is expected to be close later this year. Pricing and terms of the deal have not yet been publicly disclosed.

"At CCM, we primarily provide fixed income portfolios that include impact and environmental, social, and governance factors," Greenspan states, describing Hennessy as "the right home" for CCM's equity mutual fund shareholders.

"The CCM Equity Funds are a natural fit into our ETF, which seeks to align investors' capital with their values while striving to outperform the overall market," Hennessy states.

"It was just a good fit and a good move on both our parts," Terry Nilsen, president of Hennessy Advisors, tells MFWire.

Nilsen confirms that Hennessy Advisors has acquired 30 mutual funds and one ETF across various deals. (Hennessy Advisors entered the ETF space on December by buying the Stance ETF.)

"We've done 11 deals over the years," Nilsen says. "We are still actively looking for both traditional deals and ones in the ETF space." 

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