March 8, 2016 - Axioma, a leading provider of risk-management and portfolio-construction solutions to financial institutions, announced today that it has agreed to acquire the regulatory-reporting and risk-reporting units of ConceptONE, a global provider of back-office investment services. Terms were not disclosed.
"This acquisition will enable Axioma to offer asset managers and hedge funds a global regulatory compliance solution that is part of a fully integrated enterprise-wide risk solution," said Dr. Sebastian Ceria, chief executive officer of Axioma.
"Regulatory reporting is an increasingly onerous task for investment managers," added Ceria. "The industry wants automated, sophisticated solutions for managing its disclosure requirements. At the same time, regulatory reporting demands are increasing and becoming more frequent. With Axioma's core strengths, we can quickly scale and fortify ConceptONE's existing capabilities to support those regulatory demands."
Ken Grant, chairman and co-founder of ConceptONE, said, "We are excited to join Axioma. This transaction will help scale our offerings and reward our clients with the highest levels of service and continued investment in our products."
ConceptONE's capabilities will be integrated into Axioma Risk, the company's enterprise-wide risk solution, which will enable clients to generate consistent views of both regulatory and internal risks across the full spectrum of the organization, from front to middle to back office.
"Effectively managing risk requires a unified view of that risk, so the risk numbers that a client reports to regulators will be the same as those used to manage internal investment risk," said Ceria. "ConceptONE completes the reach of Axioma Risk to include the back office."
The ConceptONE solutions will continue to be offered under the ConceptONE brand, in addition to being integrated into Axioma solutions.
ConceptONE's Fund Services business is not part of the transaction with Axioma and will continue to operate as an independent entity. Anthony Gallo, managing director of ConceptONE Fund Services, said, "We look forward to continuing to work closely with the units to be acquired by Axioma and are fully committed to maintaining best-in-class service levels for our fund service clients."
"We are impressed with ConceptONE's core team, platform and best-in-class technology and services," said William Guttman, chairman of Axioma. "Axioma's growth is accelerating, and ConceptONE will help power the continued expansion of our risk and regulatory platforms, providing innovative new solutions for both our traditional fund and alternative investment clients."
