(Bloomberg) — New York Life Investment Management said it acquired six municipal-bond funds from Aquila Investment Management LLC, a four-decade-old firm that carved out a focus on vehicles for investing in debt from specific states.
The funds, which had about $1.2 billion of assets, had delivered a lackluster run in recent years as US markets were battered by the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases.
MacKay Municipal Managers, part of New York Life Investments, will oversee the funds.
In addition to fund sales, Aquila and its affiliate will stop providing business management and distribution services to a separate one, the Hawaiian Tax-Free Trust, during the third quarter, according to regulatory filings earlier this month. It also agreed to sell a corporate bond fund and equity fund to Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisors.
Victoria Odinotska, a spokesperson for Aquila, said “any discussion of the company’s future status would be speculative” and declined to comment further.
The acquisition will add to the growth that MacKay Municipal Managers has seen recently. Morningstar Direct estimates that New York Life Investment Management’s actively-managed, open end muni funds have seen $1.7 billion of inflows so far in 2024, according to data through June.
“MacKay Municipal Managers has a long history of subadvising municipal bond funds, including state-specific funds, and we will leverage our expertise and existing investment process to manage these new strategies,” John Loffredo, co-head of MacKay Municipal Managers, said in a statement.
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