Livingbridge-backed Catalyst merges with Sionic Advisors
Arrowpoint Advisory's Business Services sector team has advised London-based Catalyst Development, an award-winning financial markets consulting firm, on its merger with global financial services specialist Sionic Advisors.
The deal will create one of the world's largest and fastest growing specialist consulting firms, operating with a fully internationalised platform for their global client base. Following the merger, Catalyst will have a combined revenue of over $60M and more than 300 professionals based in a dozen locations.
Backed by investment from private equity firm Livingbridge since 2017, Catalyst specialises in regulatory-driven change, organisational improvement and talent development programmes for global financial institutions. Since its foundation in 1994, Catalyst has worked with more than 70 clients in over 30 financial centres worldwide, including nine out of the world's top 12 investment banks, and has mentored more than 250 of the most senior figures in financial markets.
Sionic delivers change, optimisation and strategic initiatives to a wide range of financial services institutions from bases in more than eight countries. This merger follows Catalyst's acquisition of asset and wealth management specialists Knadel in February 2018.
The combined business now plans to accelerate its growth of ‘specialism at scale’ in response to client demand. Global spend on financial services consulting in 2018 was 38bn, up from $17bn in 2008, with 10% average forecast growth. Over 70% of that spend relates to technology, operations, risk and regulatory compliance and change in banking, capital markets and insurance in North America, Europe and Asia: exactly the combined firm's key areas of expertise.
This is the third deal that Arrowpoint Advisory has advised Catalyst on, having supported their growth strategy since the 2017 buy-out backed by Livingbridge, the subsequent acquisition of Knadel in 2018 and the merger with Sionic.
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