Our continuing search for St.-Louis-managed mutual funds has turned up No. 6. Joe Bradley of Towle & Co. in Des Peres saw our item about  five other funds in the area and wrote to say that we had missed one: The Towle Deep Value Fund.

The fund opened Oct. 31 and, according to Morningstar, it has a minimum investment of $50,000 and an annual expense ratio of 1.2 percent. Investors are down 1.6 percent in the first four months of operation.

Towle & Co. was founded in 1981 by J. Ellwood Towle. Here's how the firm's website describes its investment strategy:

Towle & Co. seeks to capitalize on market inefficiencies in the public equity market. The firm specializes in a long-term, deep-value investment discipline that uncovers significant discrepancies between stock market prices and underlying company values. This search for value typically leads to smaller capitalization stocks, a market segment overlooked by many portfolio managers.

The tiny St. Louis mutual fund industry is going through something of a boomlet. Three of the six locally managed funds (Towle Deep Value, First Trust/Confluence Small Cap Value and JAG Large-Cap Growth) have been launched in the past year.  The other local funds are Riverpark/Wedgewood, Sparrow Growth and Commerce Bond.