Now that Salient Partners' [profile] purchase of Forward Management has closed, expect the combining shops to focus on integration, not more M&A ... at least for now.

Earlier this month Houston-based Salient confirmed the close of the Forward deal. Lee Partridge, chief investment officer of the combined firm firms, says that Salient is not currently hunting for more deals. Yet he didn't rule further M&A out, either.

"There's nothing on the radar screen at this point," especially not for 2015, Partridge tells MFWire. "We would continue to be open to that [i.e. more acquisitions]."

On the subadvisory side, too, Partridge confirms that the combining asset managers will not be rocking the boat any time soon. Forward recently brought a key PM, David Hinman of subadvisor SW Asset Management, into Forward as an employee. Yet Partridge says that there are no plans to bring any other subadvisor executives inhouse.

"We probably won't be entering into any new subadvisory relationships," Partridge says. "We're very happy with the subadvisors and don't have any plans to change that near term."

Partridge praises one key subadvisor, Broadmark Asset Management, in particular. In addition to subadvising for Forward, Broadmark is also the only subadvisor used by Salient, Salient already owns what Partridge calls a significant but not majority stake in Broadmark. He says he expects the relationship between Broadmark and the combined Salient-Forward company "to go broader and deeper." 

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