Global investment firm Carlyle and Invesco, a leading global asset management firm, announced an agreement for Carlyle to acquire intelliflo from Invesco. intelliflo is a market leading provider of cloud-based practice management software for independent financial advisors (IFAs) in the UK. The transaction includes intelliflo’s US-based subsidiaries, including RedBlack, a provider of SaaS-based portfolio rebalancing tools, and intelliflo Portfolio, a Portfolio Management software solution for US Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs).

The purchase price of up to $200 million is comprised of $135 million at closing, which is expected in the fourth quarter of this year subject to certain closing conditions, and up to an additional $65 million in potential future earn outs.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in London, intelliflo offers an end-to-end software platform used by over 30,000 professionals at approximately 2,600 advisory firms, supporting the management of approximately £450 billion in client assets. intelliflo’s platform delivers CRM, financial planning, client onboarding, compliance workflows, and reporting functionality. Its cloud-native, multi-tenanted SaaS architecture integrates with over 120 third-party applications. The transaction aims to strengthen intelliflo’s market-leading position in the UK and accelerate its growth in Australia.

As part of the transaction, intelliflo’s US-based subsidiaries will be established as a standalone business called RedBlack, run by a separate management team. This separation will allow both businesses to better serve and focus on their existing customers and markets. intelliflo will focus purely on delivering market leading software and innovation for the UK and Australian markets, and RedBlack will focus solely on delivering for RIAs and other financial advisors in the United States. Carlyle will support the carve-out of both businesses from Invesco and partner with both leadership teams to execute their respective growth initiatives.

Equity for the investment will be provided by Carlyle Europe Technology Partners (“CETP”) V, a €3 billion fund which invests in technology companies across Europe. The CETP team has significant experience in financial software, wealthtech, and vertically focused SaaS, with current and recent investments including SER Group, CSS, SurePay, and Calastone.

Fernando Chueca, Managing Director in the CETP investment advisory team, said: “intelliflo is a mission-critical software provider to the UK’s wealth management ecosystem, with a deeply embedded and loyal customer base. We are excited to partner with Nick, Bryan, and the team to unlock the company’s full potential and deliver a new stage of growth.”

Nick Eatock, CEO and Founder of intelliflo, said: “This is an exciting moment for intelliflo. Carlyle’s investment reflects its trust in our business and its deep experience in scaling software companies make it an ideal partner for our next phase of growth. With Carlyle’s support, we will continue to focus on delivering great value to our clients, with a renewed focus on building innovative solutions for the evolving needs of our core UK and Australian customer bases.”

Bryan Perryman, the CEO of the newly formed RedBlack, said: “Our team is highly motivated by the opportunity to bring our full focus onto the US market as an agile, standalone company. RedBlack has a rich history of delivering market-leading software solutions for our US RIA customer base. We are excited to be backed in this endeavour by a sponsor with the reputation and credentials of Carlyle, which will continue to best position RedBlack to support advisors’ needs.”

Doug Sharp, Senior Managing Director, Head of Americas and EMEA, at Invesco, said: “As intelliflo and the newly incorporated RedBlack embark on their next phases of growth with Carlyle, we are confident that both companies are well-positioned for continued success and innovation in the wealth technology space. We look forward to our continued relationship with intelliflo and RedBlack through our common interaction with wealth advisor clients.”

Evercore served as financial advisor to Invesco and HSF Kramer acted as legal adviser. Altman Solon, PWC, Oliver Wyman and Ringstone conducted due diligence on the acquisition. Gibson Dunn acted as legal counsel to Carlyle.

Source: Carlyle