Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group will acquire a majority stake in global funds network Calastone.
Funds affiliated with The Carlyle Group will support Calastone in accelerating its growth, including broadening its product suite as well as the applications of its technology and international expansion.
The Carlyle Group acquired the majority stake from stakeholders including Octopus Ventures and Accel, while Calastone management will retain a minority stake.
“We have made great strides in the past decade to meet the needs of our customers and their investors in reducing friction and costs within the mutual fund industry,” said Julien Hammerson, CEO, Calastone.
“Our business has grown from strength to strength and has created the Distributed Market Infrastructure (DMI), a hugely innovative and market leading DLT based platform to drive yet more efficiency. At the same time, we have continued to expand internationally and created new opportunities in money market funds.”
Founded in 2007, Calastone has grown to become the largest global funds network and has transformed the mutual funds sector through its innovative use of technology and network interoperability.
Calastone serves over 2,300 clients in 43 countries processing £200 billion of investment value each month.
The firm’s network brings together the entire fund trading process, offering automated order routing, settlement, dividend and transfer services to asset and fund managers.
In May last year, Calastone launched its DMI platform, enabling the full automation and digitalisation of the fund transaction process via distributed ledger technology (DLT). Leveraging this technology, Calastone has scaled and diversified its strategy to develop from purely mutual fund services to offer automated fund services to the money market funds sector.
“Calastone is a global leader and innovator in the funds technology industry, a large and growing market. Since its inception, the company has achieved remarkable growth through replacing legacy and complex workflows with truly innovative solutions for its clients,” added Fernando Chueca, a managing director in The Carlyle Group’s advisory team.
“We are delighted to partner with Julien and the management team and look forward to leveraging our global platform, network of relationships, and deep expertise in financial services and technology to support Calastone in its next phase of growth.”