Could Iress private equity sale finally shake up the back-office world?

‘Even if IFAs had the budgets, there is a huge amount of inertia at play here’

clock • 5 min read

Justin Cash on the future of back-office players amid takeover activity

When Invesco bought Intelliflo seven years ago, some pretty bold predictions were bandied around. One was that the first fully global, fully integrated back office was on its way. All in Intelliflo's path would perish in the pursuit of worldwide market domination. Though it is by far the largest UK provider, that's not quite happened. Now, another major back-office provider deal is on the cards: a private equity takeover of Iress by Blackstone and Thoma Bravo, with early buyout talks first reported four weeks ago. Could this be the one that has that transformative global effect? Maybe. B...

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