A private equity shop is buying a Midwestern mutual fund shop's parent after the death of the fund shop's founder.

Kevin Keeley, president of Keeley Asset Management Corp [profile] (Kamco), confirms that TA Associates is buying the voting shares of Kamco parent Joley Corp, with "certain KAMCO employees" slated to get equity stakes in Joley over time. Kamco founder (and father of Kevin) John Keeley died on June 4.

"The transfer of ownership to TA and the future transfer of non-controlling ownership interest to our employees will complete our transition from sole ownership by the Keeley family," states Kevin Keeley, who will stay on as president after the deal closes (slated for next month."

Brien O'Brien will become executive chairman of both Joley and Kamco. He co-founded Advisory Research, Inc. (which TA once had a stake in) and previously lead asset management at Piper Jaffray. Kevin Chin is chief investment officer of the Chicago-based value equity mutual fund shop.

Roger Kafker, managing director at TA and board member at Joley, praises Kamco as "a premier investment boutique" and said that the TA team members "look forward to continuing [their] active involvement" with the fund firm.

Indeed, the folks at Kamco and TA already know each other. As detailed in Kamco's release on today's deal, the mutual fund shop "completed a minority leveraged recapitalization with TA" back in 2008.

33-year-old Kamco has more than $4.0 billion in AUM. 

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