Transactions
January 2017
New York, NY
has been acquired by
a portfolio company of
New York, NY
Background
Advise provides regulatory reporting solutions to hedge funds and investment managers. The company was founded in 2010 by CEO Doug Schwenk. He and current COO/CFO Jeff Faber had worked together at a multibillion dollar hedge fund, with Doug leading the noninvestment side of the business and Jeff in a tech/ops role. Both saw how advances in technology and increasing regulation were converging to create a business opportunity for the right providers. Doug went on to found Advise Technologies in 2010, with Jeff joining the senior team in 2014.
Based in NYC, with offices in Amsterdam, Paris, and London, Advise’s intuitive, easy to use software platform allows clients investment managers and fund administrators) to manage regulatory reporting such as Form PF, AIFMD, CPO-PQR and Form ADV while maintaining complete transparency, accuracy and reliability required by global regulators and authorities.
After six years of strong growth, Advise determined that partnering with a financial sponsor would a logical next step in the company’s evolution. That’s when Advise’s management team approached M&A for assistance in finding a partner that would understand their business and their culture and join with them to help accelerate the company’s growth.
M&A had the advantage of knowing both the governance risk and compliance (“GRC”) sector and the players including both strategic firms as well as financial sponsors that have targeted the GRC industry for investment. M&A organized a dedicated team to work closely with Management to identify strengths and weaknesses of the Company, and to develop materials that would seamlessly communicate Advise’s story, strategy and growth potential.
With Marlin’s assistance, Advise had a tremendous amount of companies who indicated strong interest in partnering with Advise and ultimately received multiple offers. After careful consideration of several alternatives, Advise chose to negotiate final terms with Compliance Solution Strategies (“CSS”) a GRC company financed by through CIP Capital, a growth-oriented, middle-market private equity firm. The CSS platform was enhanced with with two other acquisitions, Ascendant Compliance Management and The MoneyMate Group. Together these firms will be in a strong position to offer a global platform that provides a comprehensive regulatory reporting, data management, outsourced compliance management services, compliance workflow tools, shareholding disclosure, trade monitoring, trading analytics and cybersecurity solutions.
M&A initiated this transaction, advised the Company through all phases of the process from preparation through negotiations, due diligence reviews and the closing - providing guidance on matters such as partner selection, valuation, structure and key terms. M&A worked diligently with the company to help the company craft materials, identify potential partners, negotiate alternative offers with multiple parties and manage the due diligence review process. Marlin & Associates acted as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to the shareholders and managers of Advise Technologies.
"We would like to thank the Marlin & Associates team. They brought a deep understanding of the industry and their expertise was critical in helping us navigate through this strategic transaction. We are very excited about Advise’s future within this new structure.”
Doug Schwenk, Founder and CEO of Advise Technologies
“The senior level attention and focus on execution at M&A was key – M&A knew all the right people in our sector and managed the process exceptionally. The team worked tirelessly to ensure that all of our objectives were achieved.”
Jeff Faber, COO and CFO of Advise Technologies