Daley nephew closing finance firm

(Crain’s) — A money management firm bought two years ago by Peter Thompson, a nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley, is closing after Mr. Thompson left to become CEO of a much bigger Chicago-based money manager.

Perkins Investment Management LLC named Mr. Thompson, 40, to the post this month, two weeks after Denver-based Janus Capital Group Inc. acquired a majority stake in Perkins. His mother, Patricia, is Mr. Daley’s eldest sibling.

Mr. Thompson had worked at Ariel Investments LLC for 12 years and served as finance chief of Mr. Daley’s successful 2007 re-election campaign before Mr. Thompson bought Chicago Asset Management Company LLC and confronted a turnaround challenge as president and CEO.

The firm’s assets had shriveled to $577 million from more than $2 billion when its investment strategy of buying large-company value stocks fell out of favor.

Mr. Thompson, known for his relationship skills and access to public pension trustees, declined to comment.

Calls to Chicago Asset Management and retired founder Jon Holsteen were not returned.

A woman who answered the phone at Chicago Asset Management said, “The company is closing.”

Janus, the huge mutual fund company, paid $90 million in November to increase its stake in Perkins to 80% from 30%. Janus said Perkins will become a Chicago-based subsidiary. Like other publicly traded money managers, Janus stock has been battered by the bear market, hitting an all-time low this month.

Perkins’ two mid-cap value mutual funds have been relatively strong performers: One achieved a top 3% ranking by Morningstar Inc. for the decade ended in December. Perkins hasn’t been immune to the market meltdown — asset values fell to $9 billion at yearend from $11 billion on Sept. 30 — but investment flows were positive during the quarter, Janus said.

“It really just boils down to buying stocks cheap on a cash-flow basis and cheap relative to their peers,” said Morningstar Inc. senior mutual fund analyst Andrew Gogerty in Chicago.

Perkins steered away from hard-hit financial stocks and sold real estate investment trust holdings at mid-decade, missing out on two years of gains while escaping the recent crash in real estate values.

“They’d rather leave gains on the table than catch that last dollar,” Mr. Gogerty said.