Fund administrator Gen II will make significant investments in the UK after recently closing on its acquisition of fellow fund administrator Crestbridge.
Steven Millner, Gen II’s CEO, told Private Funds CFO that it will grow its operations in Southampton, with an office that he calls “a center of excellence.”
“We’re going to invest and put a lot of our resources into Southampton,” he said.
The office will work on areas such as investor services and KYC/AML, Millner noted.
While Crestbridge has a legacy presence in Southampton – with a current headcount of around 45 – Millner noted that Gen II has a lease for a new local office that can accommodate 300 staffers.
The Southampton office is intended to help the combined firm operate more efficiently.
“From a financial and operating perspective, it should create scale to our model, with the hopes that we can reduce cycle times to our clients,” Millner said.
And investing in London, also an existing place for Crestbridge, is a priority due to proximity with key executives in the industry.
“London is really, oftentimes, the front office for leading European private equity funds,” Millner said.
The London office has more than 120 staffers, he noted. And it works on business development, operational support and client relationship management.
The acquisition marked a new chapter for Gen II in Europe more broadly. Millner said it went from having about 150 staffers in Luxembourg to around 650 in multiple countries.
Prior to the tie-up, Gen II had been most active in North America while Crestbridge’s center of gravity was in Europe.
The acquisition also gives the firm presences in Ireland and the Channel Islands.
Millner said that his company is responding to clients that have expanded their own footprints.
Mixing strengths
Millner noted that Gen II will make asset-class capabilities from each firm available across regions. As an example, this means that the firm plans to bring its stateside buyout capability to Europe.
“We think we could be a very attractive solution for them,” Millner noted. He added that Gen II getting Crestbridge’s real estate capability.
“We’re going to take some of that expertise and export it into the United States,” he said. Gen II will do the same for each company’s software program for servicing clients.
Millner said it will use Crestbridge’s Investran capability to assist US customers. And Gen II will use an existing program, called Sensr, to serve Crestbridge’s clients.
“They have some cool technology that we think we could bring into the US and vice versa,” Millner said about the broader opportunity.