Bain Capital Tech Opportunities to Invest in Finova and Acquire Iress’ Uk MSO Software Business for $108.6 Mn
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, the growth investing arm of Bain Capital, agreed to a majority investment in Finova and to acquire Iress’ UK Mortgage Sales and Originations software business (“MSO”), for £85 million (€99.4 million; $108.6 million). Bain Capital expects to offer a fuller set of products by combining these two investments.
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities is the growth investing arm of Bain Capital, which focuses on companies in large, growing end markets with innovative or disruptive technology. The fund invests in application software, fintech and payments, healthcare IT, and infrastructure and security.
finova, based in London, provides a comprehensive suite of modular, open-architecture SaaS-based originations and servicing solutions to help the full spectrum of specialist lenders, equity release lenders, savings institutions, and brokers manage key workflows. Its software enables customers to efficiently manage their pricing and decisioning, underwriting, application processing, and servicing of loans. MSO, based in Cheltenham, is a leading provider specialising in residential mortgage and buy-to-let origination software to banks and building societies in the U.K. since 2014.
The mortgage market is becoming faster paced and more complex, increasing the need for more sophisticated software tools such as personalised pricing. These combined businesses will be well positioned to meet the demand for more advanced software. Customers will also benefit from a broader software suite that supports a wider range of financial products.
“We are excited to back a compelling combination of robust platforms with complementary product suites and customer bases,” said James Stevens, a Managing Director of Bain Capital Tech Opportunities in London. “The combined scale of these two businesses will allow us to offer more competitive and innovative products in a dynamic market, ultimately bringing more choice to consumers across the country.”
Paraag Davé, Executive Chairman of finova, said: “Bain Capital’s investment in each business will strengthen and invest in the capabilities of both platforms and help deliver increased value to our customers. We are thrilled to blend finova’s SaaS expertise in complex solutions such as pricing, decisioning, specialist lending, savings, and loan servicing with MSO’s leadership in residential mortgage originations.”
Andrew Simon, MSO CEO, said: “This is the ideal outcome for our business and our customers. Bain Capital is fully committed to investing in MSO to ensure our customers continue to benefit from software that is amongst the best in the market. Through the combined business, we’re looking forward to bringing a broader set of innovative products to market.”
About Bain Capital Tech Opportunities
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities (www.baincapitaltechopportunities.com) aims to help growing technology companies reach their full potential. We focus on companies in large, growing end markets with innovative or disruptive technology where we believe we can support transformational growth. Our dedicated, tenured team has deep experience supporting growing technology businesses—bringing together differentiated backgrounds in private and public equity investing as well as technology operating roles. We invest behind fundamental long-term tailwinds as technology penetrates across industries, creating a large and growing number of investment opportunities.
About finova
finova is a London-based software firm that provides a comprehensive suite of modular, SaaS based open-architecture software to help lenders and brokers in the Mortgage, Lending and Savings sectors. https://www.finova.tech
About Iress
Iress (IRE.ASX) is a technology company providing software to the financial services industry.
The company provides software and services for trading & market data, financial advice, investment management, mortgages, superannuation, life & pensions and data intelligence.
Iress’s software is used by more than 10,000 businesses and 500,000 users globally. We have over 2,000 people based in Asia-Pacific, North America, Africa, the UK and Europe.
This transaction is subject to customary approvals.
