Hg Capital offloads Intelliflo to Invesco

Hg Capital announced the sale of Intelliflo, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business for UK financial advisors, to Atlanta-based global investment management company Invesco on Wednesday.

The London-listed firm described Intelliflo as a UK provider of front and back‑office software solutions to financial intermediaries, including IFAs, wealth managers, adviser networks, insurance and life companies, and brokers.

It said Intelliflo's ‘Intelligent Office’ (iO) software platform was the “backbone” of the UK wealth sector, assisting financial advisors across the full advice journey including client relationship management, financial planning, client reporting, portfolio valuation and provision of advisor-led automated advice.

Hg partnered with Intelliflo in 2013, in line with its strategy to invest in leading recurring revenue vendors in the financial services software sector.

Over the last five years, Hg said it supported the company to implement best-in-class SaaS practices in development, operations, sales and marketing, under the leadership of founder Nick Eatock and CEO Hamish Purdey.

The company said it had experienced a “material acceleration” of revenue growth in that period and had become the “leading” technology platform for financial advisors in the UK, successfully supporting the business of around 30% of UK financial advisors.

Hg said it was the sixth realisation achieved by the Hg Mercury 1 fund, which now had a gross realised fund multiple of 3.4x original cost and 44% gross internal rate of return.

The sale also represented the 16th realisation across all Hg funds in the last 18 months, which had returned more than £3bn in aggregate to clients.

“During our partnership with Nick, Hamish and the team at Intelliflo we have supported the company to become one of the world's leading innovators of SaaS technology for the wealth and asset management industry,” said Hg partner Sebastien Briens.

“We are delighted to see them starting a new partnership with Invesco.

“We will continue our focus on the asset management and wealth sector, having already partnered with several exciting businesses serving this vertical.”

Hamish Purdey, chief executive officer at Intelliflo, said his company would continue with its open architecture philosophy after the sale.

“It remains critically important to us that our financial adviser customers continue to be able to select from a wide range of product providers.”