Adam Patti and his team are staying put.

Patti, CEO and co-founder of eight-year-old IndexIQ [profile], confirms that his "full team" of 18 people is coming to New York Life's MainStay [profile] arm when the deal closes in the first half of 2015. New York Life Investment Management chief Drew Lawton unveiled the deal last week.

"It's a growth story," Patti tells MFWire, noting that IndexIQ's ETF efforts will provide another platform for broadening NYLIM's business. "If anything we're going to be building, certainly not cutting."

IndexIQ will keep its brand as part of MainStay's multi-boutique model, Patti says. Yet the IndexIQ products (currently 11 ETFs and 1 traditional mutual fund) will shift to a combined brand, MainStayIQ.

"Culturally and vision-wise we're right in sync," Patti says. "That's one of the beautiful things about this relationship."

Looking forward, Patti sees the second phase of growth in the ETF market as being in more sophisticated ETF products (as opposed to the original ETFs that tracked extremely broad, famous indexes). And that sophisticated end of the ETF business is where IndexIQ has planted its flag. 

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