City National Corp. in Los Angeles announced Tuesday that it had agreed to buy a majority stake in Lee Munder Capital Group, a Boston investment firm that manages assets for corporations, pensions, endowments and affluent households.
Formed in 2000, Lee Munder offers investment strategies that include small-cap growth, small- and mid-cap value, global multicap, large-cap core, international equities and fixed-income.
Once the deal closes, Lee Munder would merge with Independence Investments, a Boston institutional asset manager in which City National holds a majority stake. The combined company would become City National's primary institutional asset management unit. With more than $4 billion of assets under management, it would operate under the Lee Munder brand and as an affiliate of Convergent Capital Management LLC, the Chicago asset management holding company that City National bought in 2003.
The price of the deal, expected to close in the third quarter, was not disclosed. Once it closes City National and its eight investment affiliates would manage or administer nearly $49 billion of client investment assets, including more than $32 billion under direct management.
