TA Associates is still on the prowl for asset managers to invest in.

On Monday the Boston-based private equity giant unveiled a deal to buy a majority stake in Omaha-based NorthStar Financial Group, the parent of ETF strategist and mutual fund shop CLS Investments and mutual fund back office and distribution specialists Gemini Fund Services and Northern Lights Distributors. The deal allows Mike Miola -- the founder of Gemini's predecessor, 50-percent owner of NorthStar, and chairman of NorthStar's board -- to retire.

Roy Burns, a managing director at TA, confirms that the private equity firm remains on the hunt.

"We like the asset management industry. We're very interested in additional investments in the space," Burns tells MFWire. "We have a view of wanting multiple investments in asset management at any given time. We have plenty of capacity to do more in the asset management industry."

Fundsters may recognize TA as a former backer of AIM (now part of publicly-traded Invesco) and AMG, and TA currently counts First Eagle and Stadion among its portfolio companies. TA's first asset management industry investment, Burns says, was in Keystone Mutual Funds back in 1989.

"It's an industry that we like quite a bit," Burns says. 

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