Global investment heavyweight H.I.G. Capital is demonstrating the sheer breadth of its portfolio strategy this week, executing a blockbuster exit in the UK financial technology sector while simultaneously deploying fresh debt capital on the continent. At the top of the agenda is the sale of FNZ, an Edinburgh-headquartered wealth management platform, for a staggering £1.65 billion. H.I.G., alongside co-investor General Atlantic, is offloading the fintech giant to Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) and Generation Investment Management. Unsurprisingly, this marks one of the year’s most significant fintech transactions.
Digitising the Wealth Chain
Founded back in 2003, FNZ has quietly grown into a European market leader. The firm now oversees more than £300 billion in assets under administration for roughly five million customers. Its client roster reads like a who’s who of global finance, boasting names such as Standard Life Aberdeen, Barclays, Lloyds Bank, Vanguard, Generali, Quilter, Santander, Aviva, Zurich, UOB, UBS, Findex, and BNZ.
Adrian Durham, FNZ’s founder and CEO, noted that the firm was born out of a desire to fix a fundamentally broken, paper-reliant system. Historically, investors faced fees so exorbitant that their retirement income was essentially halved over thirty years, leaving them no better off than if they had simply kept their cash in a bank deposit. FNZ upended this dynamic by entirely digitising the value chain. By rolling out a cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model alongside robust custody and transaction services, the firm drastically cut costs and complexity. Crucially, this setup frees up major financial institutions to step away from technology management and focus purely on their core customer offerings.
A Long-Term Sustainable Play
The sellers were quick to highlight FNZ’s exceptional growth trajectory, noting its successful expansion across Europe and Asia into everything from mass-market workplace pensions to high-net-worth portfolios. Consequently, H.I.G. steps away having secured what it described as an outstanding return for its investors.
The new owners, however, are explicitly playing the long game. Stephane Etroy, executive vice-president and head of private equity at CDPQ, explained that his team had scoured the globe for financial tech firms boasting genuine global-scale potential. By partnering with Generation Investment Management, CDPQ is pioneering a somewhat unorthodox, sustainable equity model. This approach is designed for a holding period far exceeding what is typical for either private or public equity, perfectly aligning with their ethos of sustainable, long-term value creation.
Fuelling Mid-Market Buyouts
Yet, even as H.I.G. cashes in its chips on FNZ, its credit subsidiary is actively fuelling new deals elsewhere in Europe. H.I.G. WhiteHorse has just stepped in to provide senior secured financing to support Armira’s acquisition of Viabus B.V. Based in the Netherlands, Viabus dominates a very different niche, designing and running affordable, guided package bus tours specifically tailored for senior citizens.
Pascal Meysson, head of H.I.G. WhiteHorse Europe, pointed to the tour operator’s high brand awareness, remarkably loyal customer base, and appealing asset-light business model as the primary drivers for the backing. He added that the firm is eager to support Armira in driving Viabus’s continued growth.
A $74 Billion Global Engine
These twin moves vividly underscore the scale and versatility of Miami-headquartered H.I.G. Capital. Managing an impressive $74 billion in capital, the firm operates a sprawling network of offices spanning the US, Latin America, Europe, Dubai, and Hong Kong. It targets the mid-market segment with a highly flexible, operationally focussed approach, deploying capital across several distinct strategies:
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Equity Funds: Investing in management buyouts, recapitalisations, and corporate carve-outs across both highly profitable and underperforming manufacturing and service businesses.
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Debt Funds: Providing senior, unitranche, and subordinated financing to companies of varying sizes on both primary and secondary markets, alongside managing the publicly traded WhiteHorse Finance.
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Real Estate & Infrastructure: Targeting value-add properties and core-plus infrastructure investments that benefit from enhanced asset management practices.