Firms enlarge high-wealth and institutional investment platform. MB Investment Partners, a New York-based investment- and wealth-management firm, has merged with Ironwood Capital Management, a Boston based asset-manager that specializes in small-cap stocks. MB says the new combination reaffirms its commitment to develop a “premier” wealth-management and institutional-investment platform.

Ironwood Capital Management will be a wholly owned subsidiary of MB. Details of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

The newly combined firm, MB Investment Partners/Ironwood, starts life with $1.1 billion in assets under management; about 70% of those assets come from the MB side of the equation.

Very advantageous

“This is a great opportunity for MB Investment Partners and Ironwood, as it brings together two firms with strong investment management skills and decades of industry experience,” says MB’s managing partner Robert Machinist. “We are confident that this merger will allow us to further diversify our product offering and wealth management platform to preserve and enhance our client's wealth.”

Before he joined MB a few years ago, Machinist was head of investment banking at the Bank of New York.

Nine-year-old Ironwood brings its small-cap capabilities to MB’s large-cap and fixed-income investment platform for high-wealth individuals and families, non-profits and institutions. That platform is further supported by Centre Partners, a Los Angeles-based private-equity firm with a middle-market focus.

Warren Isabelle, MB Investment Partners/Ironwood’s CIO and former president and CIO of Ironwood, says it was clear from the firms’ early discussions “that it would be very advantageous to combine our strengths as a small-cap investment-management firm with the wealth-management expertise of MB Investment Partners.”

MB was advised in the transaction by Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen; Ironwood’s counsel was Burns & Levinson. –FWR

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