Fidelity Equity Partners has committed to invest 18.5 million to acquire a significant minority stake in the Complinet Group.
Sebastian McKinlay and Stephen Findlay, partner and vice president for Fidelity Equity Partners, respectively, have joined the companys board of directors.
Complinet was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in London. It currently services over 1,200 companies, including approximately 80% of the worlds largest financial services firms, such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, Edward Jones, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
The companys services combine deep regulatory insight with innovative technology that provide timely information, analysis and risk management services to more than 100,000 compliance and legal professionals across 81 countries.
The funds will be used to help enhance Complinets product offering and build out its international presence. The company will also seek to further expand, either organically or through acquisition, into financial services sub-sectors. Fidelitys investment also enables some of Complinets long standing shareholders to get liquidity for a portion of their holding.
“With Fidelity Equity Partners as our new investment partner, we are in an excellent position to take advantage of our experience and technical leadership in the online regulatory solutions marketplace. The timing for this investment is right, given the rapidly growing demand for regulatory and compliance solutions from financial services companies. Through its relationship with Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Equity Partners is the ideal investment partner to accelerate our market leadership and enable us to scale the business to the next level,” says Chris Pilling, CEO, Complinet.
“The global marketplace for regulatory and compliance solutions is growing quickly. In fact, in 2007, risk technology expenditures alone were estimated to be $5.9 billion and grow 7% per year. Complinet is extremely well-positioned to leverage the significant investment it has made to date in its solution suite and global service offering to take advantage of this opportunity. As a market leading, high growth and international service company Complinet represents a perfect example of the types of business Fidelity Equity Partners was established to invest in and support. We are excited to partner with Chris and the entire Complinet management team,” adds McKinley.
The shareholders of Complinet were advised by the van Tulleken Company.