Financial services provider Apex has reached an agreement to acquire the asset management services company, Sanne. The acquisition is expected to become effective in the first half of 2022.
The news of the acquisition comes after Sanne’s rejection of a proposed £1.35 billion take over bid from Cinven, a global private equity firm in May.
In December last year, Sanne entered into an agreement to acquire Private Equity Administrators (PEA), a private equity fund administrator.
The acquisition was intended to provide an opportunity to increase the scale of Sanne’s Guernsey operations with the potential to drive cost synergies.
The fund administrator also became the first successful applicant to secure a specialised depositary licence from the Central Bank of Ireland in March.
The licence marked a significant milestone for its Irish business as the licence will allow it to extend its capabilities in Ireland and its multi-jurisdictional proposition for alternative fund managers, according to Sanne.
Established in 1988, the asset management services company gained £22.5 million in new business wins throughout 2020.
Commenting on the acquisition Rupert Robson, the chairman of Sanne, says: “Sanne has a bright future ahead of it as a leader in its industry, which is entirely due to the tremendous effort of the management team and employees of the business over the past several years.”
Peter Hughes, CEO and founder of the Apex Group, comments: “Sanne offers an exciting opportunity for Apex to acquire a well-established alternative fund services provider with diverse and complementary jurisdictional and asset class expertise.
He adds: “We are confident that a combination of our businesses to create one of the largest global service providers to the alternative assets space with over $2.2 trillion of assets serviced, will facilitate even greater success for both companies while representing attractive value for Sanne’s shareholders.”
