Emerald Asset Management, Inc., an investment management holding company with approximately $3.0 billion in assets under management, is pleased to announce it has signed a purchase agreement to acquire the assets and integrate the management team of Elessar Investment Management, Inc. The Elessar team will join Emerald subsidiary Emerald Advisers, Inc. upon completion of the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

With over 30 years of industry experience, Rick Giesen founded Elessar Investment Management in 2005. Elessar has offered a high level of personalized service focused on both individual and institutional investors interested in value-oriented small and small-to-midcap domestic equity investments. Elessar’s team and investment philosophy are a natural fit with Emerald’s research-driven approach. Elessar is a boutique firm with passion and dedication to value investing, employing a research-based investment process that includes a rigorous and disciplined bottom-up fundamental research analysis conducted on each investment candidate. The Elessar team will remain based in Cleveland.

“We are excited to welcome the Elessar team and their clients to the Emerald family,” said Joseph E. Besecker, chairman and CEO of Emerald Asset Management. “Rick Giesen and his team have demonstrated a strong commitment and a long track record of great success in value-focused small and smid-cap investing, and have done so with a passion for fundamental research that we share,” said Emerald Advisers president and chief investment officer Kenneth G. Mertz II, CFA.

“We are proud of the record and reputation that Elessar has earned over the past nine years and look forward to bringing our team, philosophy and process to a wider audience through our merging with Emerald Advisers,” said Elessar president and founder Rick Giesen. Mr. Giesen is joining Emerald along with Elessar co-portfolio manager Ori Elan and compliance and operations specialist Mitch Krahe, Esq.

Elessar clients include institutional and individual investors, as well as shareholders in the Elessar Small-Cap Value Fund, a mutual fund founded in 2012. Pending shareholder approval, the Elessar Fund will become part of the Emerald Mutual Funds family.

Emerald is headquartered in Leola, Pennsylvania and also maintains offices in King of Prussia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Oceanside, California, and upon completion of the Elessar transaction, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Founded in 1991, Emerald Asset Management, Inc. is a diversified investment management holding company that operates through its wholly-owned subsidiaries Emerald Advisers, Inc., Emerald Separate Account Management, LLC and Emerald Mutual Fund Advisers Trust, and subsidiaries Emerald Fixed Income Advisers, LLC and Emerald Direct Lending Advisers, LLC. Assets managed by these companies totaled approximately $3.0 billion as of December 31, 2014. “Driven by Research,” Emerald employs an intense fundamental, research-focused investment philosophy and focuses primarily on growth- and value-oriented equity investing and high-quality disciplined income-oriented investing.

This is presented for informational purposes only and shall not be construed as an offer to enter into any form of investment or transaction.

Emerald Asset Management, Inc.
Emerald Advisers, Inc.
Emerald Mutual Fund Advisers Trust
Emerald Separate Account Management, LLC
Emerald Fixed Income Advisers, LLC
Emerald Direct Lending Advisers, LLC
3175 Oregon Pike
Leola, PA 17540
717.556.8900
800.722.4123
www.TeamEmerald.com