Western & Southern Financial Group's Touchstone Investments [profile] is acquiring assets of Sentinel Asset Management [profile] from National Life Group pending the approval of Sentinel's Board of Trustees, which is scheduled to meet on Monday April 24.

Steve Graziano Touchstone Investments President

The terms of the deal are not yet disclosed. The deal is expected to be completed by early Q4.

Montpelier, Vermont-based Sentinel currently manages 11 mutual fund strategies with combined assets under management of $5.54 billion as of Feb. 28. The deal is expected to push Touchstone's AUM to $20 billion.

Berkshire Capital Securities is the investment banker for Sentinel on the deal. Cincinnati, Ohio-based Touchstone did not hire a bank.

"Sentinel decided to hire a banker and put the property up for sale," Steven M. Graziano, president of Touchstone, tells MFWire. "It is a very synergistic transaction for us."

"We are very excited about their two strategies – Small Company Fund and International Equity Fund," he says. "Both will be continued to be managed by Sentinel but will join Fort Washington Investment Advisors."

Graziano says they will also merge five of Sentinel's funds into their counterpart funds at Touchstone totaling around $1 billion altogether.

Sentinel Investments will continue to manage the assets of National Life Group’s general account, according to an internal memo sent out by CEO of National Life Group Mehran Assadi earlier today.

"It is anticipated that the Sentinel Small Company and International Equity teams will be moving to Touchstone. There may be opportunities for others to join Touchstone," Assadi told his employees in the memo. "Our People Center will be working closely with each affected individual to find them a position within the company or with Touchstone. I have asked our Talent Acquisition team to suspend external recruitment and to focus our efforts on redeployment where possible."

As per the memo, the company scheduled town hall forums on both their campuses, one in Vermont and Rio Grande, at 3:00 p.m. EST and 2:00 p.m. CT respectively, to discuss the news.  

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