A publicly traded, multi-boutique asset manager in Connecticut is poised to buy a 19-year-old, employee-owned, private credit asset manager in Utah next quarter.

Today, George Aylward, president and CEO of Virtus Investment Partners, Inc. (VRTS) [profile], and John Earl, co-founder and managing partner of Keystone National Group, confirm that Hartford-based Virtus has agreed to buy a majority stake in Salt Lake City-based Keystone. The Keystone team now has $2.5 billion in AUM*, including $2 billion in the Keystone Private Income Fund (KPIF, Keystone's flagship '40 Act tender offer fund), while Virtus now has $166.2 billion*.

Keystone currently has a team of about 40 employees, including four managing partners who are the principal owners**: Earl and his fellow co-founder Brandon Nielson, with stakes of between 25 and 49 percent each; Brad Allen, chief financial officer, with between 10 and 24 percent; and Taylor Jackson, also with between 10 and 24 percent. The Virtus team reveals that the deal involves long-term employment agreements for the Keystone managing partners, who will keep stakes in the firm. The Keystone team will also keep their brand, culture, investment process, and day-to-day activities going, under their control, the Virtus team adds.

Virtus is promising to pay $200 million up front for a 56-percent stake in Keystone, plus up to $170 million in an earnout, for a grand total of up to $370 million. (Virtus overall has a market cap of $1.09 billion.) That works out to up to 14.8 percent of Keystone's AUM. The Keystone team will keep the remaining 44 percent ownership of their boutique for now, but the Virtus team reveals that they plan to use "staged equity purchases", three to six years down the line, to boost Virtus' Keystone stake to 75 percent.

RBC Capital Markets advised Virtus on the deal, while BofA Securities advised Keystone. On the legal side, Goodwin Procter LLP counseld Virtus, while Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP counseled Keystone. The deal is expected to closed in Q1 2026.

Aylward lauds Keystone as "an innovative asset-centric private credit manager that has delivered attractive, uncorrelated returns." Buying Keystne will help the Virtus team, Aylward says, "meet the needs of clients who are increasingly looking for alternative sources of income as well as to diversify their private credit exposure beyond direct lending."

"John Earl and Brandon Nielson, Keystone's co-founders, and their team have built a high quality, client-focused business and we welcome them to our family of investment managers," Aylward states.

Earl, for his part, call Virtus "an ideal strategic partner to support [the] next stage of growth and evolution" at Keystone. He describes his shop as "an early pioneer in asset-backed private credit."

"We look forward to continuing to deliver outstanding service for our clients as part of the Virtus platform," Earl states. "Virtus' extensive distribution footprint positions us to further capitalize on the increasing number of investment opportunities that we continue to see in our differentiated asset-backed credit space."

Earl, a former investment banker from Lehman Brothers and Shattuck Hammon Partners, and Nielson, an alumnus of Regional Investment Partners and Partners Group, launched Keystone in 2006.

*As of October 31, 2025.

**Per Keystone's most recent form ADV, filed in March 2025. 

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