By James Langton

(November 8 – 09:40 ET) – No-load fund firm Altamira Investment Services Inc. is going public.

Altamira is confirming rampant Street speculation of an IPO, saying that it has filed a preliminary prospectus with securities authorities. An IPO has been expected ever since Altamira resolved its ownership fight that saw Manulife Financial Corp. selling its stake in the firm to Boston-based investors TA Associates.

TA, which also helped put together AIM and Invesco several years ago, now owns around 35% of the Toronto-based firm. The rest of the firm is owned by its management, founding shareholders and Almiria Capital Corp., an investment firm that is primarily comprised of pension funds.

After TA came in to settle the bun fight between Manulife and the firm’s other shareholders, it installed Gord Cheesborough, then with Scotia Capital, as chief executive. Several founding executives departed, followed by a big chunk of pension money, and then its big name fund manager Frank Mersch. After a spell of bad performance and a run in with regulators Mersch left Altamira, later resurfacing with a hedge fund, Casurina LP.

But after all this turmoil, the good ship Altamira righted itself and has been on the rise ever since. It expanded its product offering with low-cost index funds and has benefited by an aggressive move into e-commerce investing, a niche it exploited first. Through the first nine months of the year, it has been one of the few firms selling well, with more than $600 million in net flows, ranking about ninth overall in absolute sales. Altamira has almost $7.5 billion in mutual fund assets under management.

With the industry looking to lose one publicly traded fund companies in Mackenzie Financial Corp., the Altamira offering will doubtless be hotly anticipated. The joint lead underwriters and joint bookrunners of the offering will be BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. and RBC Dominion Securities Inc.