Silverfleet Capital announces sale of Ipes

Silverfleet Capital, the Pan-European private equity firm that specialises in buy-to-build, has agreed the sale of Ipes, a leading provider of outsourced services to Private Equity in Europe, to Apex Group Ltd. The transaction is expected to generate a 3.8x money multiple and 30% IRR for Silverfleet once completion, which is subject to regulatory approval, occurs.

Ipes was founded in 1998 and pioneered a specialist approach to fund administration within the European Private Equity market. Ipes’ team of 265 people located in five European offices works with 195 clients and provides administration and depositary oversight to $165 billion of assets for 390 funds. Annual turnover has grown organically at a CAGR in excess of 13% for the previous ten years. Ipes’ growth has been driven by understanding the challenges facing investment managers, including increasing regulatory, reporting and investor demands, and developing innovative new services to help its clients succeed.

Silverfleet invested in Ipes in August 2013 having identified the potential to build a leading specialised outsourced service provider to Private Equity in Europe. Silverfleet expected the trend of Private Equity funds to outsource administration activities to specialised providers to continue due to increasing regulatory requirements such as AIFMD, FATCA and CRS. Since then, Ipes has achieved strong organic growth and has strengthened its pan-European footprint by more than doubling both number of clients and staff.

Mark Piasecki, Partner at Silverfleet Capital with responsibility for the financial services sector, commented: “We are delighted with the development of Ipes over the last five years. I am pleased that we were able to assist management in successfully executing their organic growth plan of investing in innovative new service propositions, such as Depositary, underpinned by significant investment into Ipes’ sector leading proprietary technology solutions of Capital Tracker and ID Register. We wish Chris and the team well under the combination with Apex.”

Chris Merry, Chief Executive Officer of Ipes said: “I would like to thank Silverfleet for their support. With their help and expertise, we have successfully grown our client base and expanded Ipes’ capabilities through innovative, technology-led, new services to our clients. This has resulted in consistently strong organic growth over the last five years and cements Ipes’ position as a leading provider of outsourced services to Private Equity in Europe. We are excited about the next stage of Ipes’ journey and, coupled with Apex’s impressive track record and scale, will ensure our standards of client service are maintained going forward.”

Silverfleet Capital has a longstanding track record of investing in the business and financial services sector having financed the original buyout of TMF from SNS Reaal. The firm recently (January 2018) divested CCC, one of Europe’s leading BPO service providers to Ardian. In addition, Silverfleet has Lifetime Training, the UK’s leading apprenticeship training provider, in its current business & financial services portfolio. The sale of Ipes marks yet another successful exit for Silverfleet in this sector.

Silverfleet Capital was advised by Rothschild (corporate finance), PWC (financial & tax), Duff & Phelps (compliance) and Travers Smith (legal).