Ipes

Guernsey-based Ipes has been a leading provider of fund administration and outsourcing for the European private equity industry since 1998.

Ipes employed more than 145 skilled professionals at the time of our investment in 2013. It administered more than $50bn of assets from four European offices in Guernsey, Jersey, London and Luxembourg.

It provides a wide range of fund administration and outsourcing services to the closed ended asset class with a particular specialism in private equity. It has more than 100 clients and looks after more than 230 funds.

Our investment

Ipes has pioneered a specialist approach to private equity fund administration, making it well placed to serve an outsourcing market against a backdrop of increased regulation and growing scrutiny from investors.

Legislation including the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FACTA) and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act generated significant new reporting requirements. These in turn created the opportunity for Ipes to develop products and services such as the ID Register to help comply with the new rules.

Value creation

We carried out the following value creation steps:

Outcome

Silverfleet supported management in successfully executing an 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.

With annual turnover having grown organically at a CAGR in excess of 13% for the previous ten years, in June 2018 Silverfleet entered an agreement to sell the business to Apex Group Ltd. Regulatory approval was received in January 2019, and the investment generated a 3.8x money multiple and 30% IRR for Silverfleet's investors.