Waystone, a provider of external management company (“ManCo”) services, claims to be the first ManCo provider to purchase a specialist fund administration company.
The firm is to acquire Centaur Group in a transaction based in Ireland that will see Waystone’s business expand to 500 people in the country.
“The transaction represents the first time a leading third-party management company has moved to integrate a fund administrator to complement its service offering, versus the established route of fund administrators adding management company services,” Waystone said.
The Centaur acquisition sees Waystone able to offer fund administration services to clients, and expanding in North America.
Derek Delaney, global CEO of Waystone, said: “For Waystone, this deal represents a major achievement, as with Centaur we are gaining a highly-experienced senior management team with similar culture and values and we will also gain additional global locations including New Jersey, Bermuda and Canada.”
He said Waystone was emerging to be “the only truly international Irish financial services firm”.
ManCos are the regulatory and governance entities of EU cross-border fund managers. The function can be outsourced to third-party providers.
The burgeoning market in ManCo outsourcing – which has seen numerous associated M&A and private equity investment among providers – comes after the main centres for cross-border fund administration, Ireland and Luxembourg, increased their fund governance requirements in recent years, requiring fund managers to have more ‘substance’ locally.
ManCos also compete on ability to offer technology solutions and help EU managers access wider international markets.
Waystone said it supported asset managers with more than US$1 trillion in assets under management, while Centaur said it had over 120 different client groups who manage in excess of $200 billion.
