BlackFin Capital Partners, a private equity firm specialized in the financial services sector, acquires a majority stake in AMfine (www.amfinesoft.com).
AMfine Services & Software is a software provider dedicated to the asset management industry, created in 2006 by Michael Priem. AMfine’s software solutions allow asset management companies to automate the production and the distribution of regulatory, tax and financial reporting for investors, tax agencies, and supervisory authorities. In an increasingly complex regulatory environment, AMfine allows asset management companies to remain fully compliant with the lastest regulatory guidelines, and to decrease back-office costs.
AMfine employs forty people in Paris and Luxembourg. AMfine’s clients are mostly Tier1 and Tier2 asset management companies and securities services providers located in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg.
This transaction allows BlackFin to become AMfine’s largest shareholder, alongside its CEO Michael Priem. BlackFin’s objectives are to strenghthen AMfine’s leading position within the regulatory reporting market in France and Luxembourg, and to reinforce AMfine’s footprint in other European countries. Furthermore, the execution of several add-on acquisitions will allow AMfine to complement its product offering and to develop its footprint in key markets.
Laurent Bouyoux, President of BlackFin Capital Partners, declares: “We are delighted by this investment in AMfine, which follows the acquisition of NeoXam in 2014. BlackFin will continue to invest in growing and profitable financial software providers in continental Europe.”
About BlackFin Capital Partners
BlackFin Capital Partners is a fully independent firm, run by its four founding partners. Laurent Bouyoux, Eric May, Bruno Rostain and Paul Mizrahi have worked together as managers and entrepreneurs in the financial industry for decades. Based in Paris and Brussels, the team consists of 12 experienced professionals from different European nationalities.
The firm’s strategy focuses on asset-light (as opposed to balance-sheet intensive) businesses in the financial services sector, across continental Europe. Businesses of interest to BlackFin include asset-management, institutional and retail brokerage, distribution of insurance and banking products, both digital and through traditional channels, payments, processing, debt management and collection, fund administration, business process outsourcing and financial technology.
BlackFin operates as an active and influential investor. In Fund I (closed in 2011), the BlackFin team has substantially transformed its portfolio companies by growing them organically, improving operating margins and also through an active buy and build strategy. Transactions have been completed in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
BlackFin will pursue this same strategy in Fund II, keeping its focus on the lower mid-market segment of the financial services sector, and supporting successful management teams to take their businesses to the next level.