Vista Equity Partners has acquired AltaReturn, the provider of end-to-end, Microsoft based software suites. The builder of private capital and family office enterprise software solutions will be merged with existing Vista portfolio company Black Mountain Systems, a builder of innovative, workflow solutions that service a wide variety of closed and open-ended assets classes.
“We’re honored to be joining forces with both the world’s premier software investor, Vista Equity Partners, and with market leader, Black Mountain,” said Allvue CEO and AltaReturn co-Founder, Rey Acosta. “This combination marks a monumental leap forward for fund managers, investors and administrators in the alternative investments industry. Our commitment to Allvue’s clients is straightforward: to develop the most innovative technology in the market while providing an exceptional level of client service."
The newly merged firm will be known as Allvue Systems. At PE Stack we are eager to see what will happen when AltaReturn’s deep expertise in front, middle and back office software combines with Black Mountain’s wide array of services, including: portfolio management, trade order management, compliance, research management, investment accounting, performance attribution, customer relationship management, investor reporting, enterprise data management and data warehousing.
A combined management team will lead the merged entity with AltaReturn co-Founder Rey Acosta as CEO. Black Mountain’s co-CEO, Kevin MacDonald, will serve as COO of Allvue.
Black Mountain’s clients consist of many of the world’s leading investment managers, credit funds, hedge funds, private equity, direct lenders and banks which use the company’s platform to manage all varieties of loans, fixed income, alternatives, derivatives, equities, and FX. AltaReturn count many major closed-ended fund managers amongst their client-base, including Oak Investment Partners and Menlo Ventures.
The past few years have seen software suppliers previously focusing on one specific area shifting toward providing a suite of services ranging from front to back office. While it is now normal for providers to be supplying a wide range of connected products, AltaReturn has been more successful than many in getting clients to adopt the entirety of their suite and benefit from the interconnectedness of data across different firm functions. It will therefore be interesting to see how the combination of AltaReturn’s platform with Black Mountain will further enhance the value propositions of the newly combined companies and what this will mean for existing clients of the two firms.
Deutsche Bank served as exclusive financial advisor to AltaReturn, and K&L Gates LLP was the company’s legal advisor. Jefferies LLC acted as financial advisor to Vista and Kirkland & Ellis served as legal advisor to the firm.
At PE Stack we are constantly monitoring the dynamic market for private equity and venture capital software and data. Over the past year, we have tracked numerous deals, partnerships and acquisitions on top of new products being launched and even a couple of companies closing up shop. You can see information of all active data and software businesses on our free to use Vendor Profiles platform, the industry’s leading source of software and data vendor intelligence.
