Kepler Cheuvreux buys majority stake in Trackinsight #NewsMarket

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French financial services company Kepler Cheuvreux has bought a majority stake in Trackinsight, the Financial Times’ data partner for the ETF Hub.

The deal is not expected to have any impact on Trackinsight’s arrangements with the FT. Neither the size of Kepler Cheuvreux’s shareholding in Trackinsight nor the financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Paris-based Kepler Cheuvreux’s operations span research, execution and corporate finance. It also has an asset management operation, largely through its Ellipsis AM arm, which manages €3.9bn ($4.3bn) in convertible bonds, credit, volatility and listed derivatives.

The privately held business employs 600 people across 14 financial centres in Europe, the US and the Middle East, and claims to have 1,300 institutional clients.

Trackinsight, also based in France, operates a proprietary exchange traded fund database; helps institutional investors analyse and select ETFs; and assists in the creation and optimisation of ETF portfolios.

The privately held company, which employs 30 people in Europe and North America and claims 50 institutional clients, also runs websites in partnership with several stock exchanges aimed at professional investors in the rapidly expanding ETF market.

The eight-year-old company’s database covers 11,000 ETFs, which it said represented 99.8 per cent of the European and North American market. Trackinsight’s branding and staff will remain in place.

Kepler Cheuvreux said the acquisition “will provide professionals with ETF selection tools based on high-quality data, cutting-edge analyses for manager and fund selection and innovative portfolio construction tools”.

Philippe Malaise, chief executive and chair of Trackinsight, said: “We are delighted to join forces with a leading partner like Kepler Cheuvreux to embark on the next stage of our development. Technology and innovation in the service of clients are at the heart of our daily concerns.”

Jean-Pierre Ané, deputy chief executive in charge of business development at Kepler Cheuvreux, said it “was already the leading independent European ETF execution provider”, although for compliance and commercial reasons it was not able to disclose data on volumes, commission or market share. More broadly, it said it traded more than €1.5bn of equities a day, on average.

“We aim to go even further by supporting our clients across the entire value chain, from selection to transaction,” Ané added.

Kepler Capital Markets was founded in 1997 by Swiss private banking group Julius Baer, before a spell under the ownership of doomed Icelandic bank Landsbanki, which collapsed during the island’s financial crisis.

It was the subject of a management buyout in 2008 and since then a number of outside investors have built stakes. In 2013 KCM bought Cheuvreux from French bank Crédit Agricole and was renamed Kepler Cheuvreux.

Management and employees now own 27.5 per cent of the company, with 40 per cent of the voting rights. The next largest shareholders are Atlas Merchant Capital, the investment vehicle of former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond (19.5 per cent), Crédit Agricole (14.6 per cent) and Italian bank UniCredit (10 per cent).