Sanne Group has agreed to acquire 100% of International Financial Services and IFS Trustees (IFS), a Mauritius-based provider of fund and corporate administration services to corporates and alternative asset managers, for $127.3m.

The transaction is expected to complete in early January 2017.

Sanne is a specialist global provider of outsourced corporate, fund and private client administration, reporting and fiduciary services, based in Jersey. 

The company was established in 1988 and is listed on the main Market of the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of approximately $700m.

Dean Godwin, CEO of Sanne Group, said: “This acquisition enables Sanne to further realise its ambition of building a leading global business. IFS is highly profitable, with a service offering and client base extremely complementary to Sanne’s.” 

“Mauritius is one of the leading international financial centres for foreign investment into Africa and India and this transaction provides us with a significant platform to both support clients in these attractive regions and grow our emerging markets presence. I am delighted to welcome the IFS team to the Group and we are excited about the opportunities to come,” he said.

IFS was established in 1993 by Couldip Lala and Dev Joory, two pioneers of the Mauritian offshore management industry, who grew the business to become one of the largest in the sector. 

IFS employs 260 employees in Mauritius, provides services to over 1,000 entities and administers assets in excess of $87bn.

Founder Director of IFS, Lala, commented: “We are very excited to be joining Sanne and be part of a leading global organisation recognised for its high quality client services. This blends with our strategy of geographical, product and services diversification.” 

Our professional staff will benefit from knowledge-sharing across jurisdictions and strive to build expertise in different products and services. Our clients will continue to be provided with services they have become accustomed to and can now take advantage of Sanne’s range of institutionally-focused fund and corporate administration and reporting services available in other jurisdictions as well,” he said.

MCB Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of MCB Group, the largest banking group in Mauritius, acted as transaction advisor to Sanne.

Rony Lam, CEO of MCB Capital Markets, said: “We are proud to be acting as transaction advisor to a large UK listed company on such a major strategic move. I believe it is the first time that a Mauritian investment bank has orchestrated and successfully executed a cross-border inbound M&A transaction of this size and complexity. This reinforces our position to advise sophisticated clients who wish to start or grow their operations in Africa.”

Carey Olsen (Jersey) acted as legal advisor and PWC (London) provided due diligence advice to Sanne. 

Investec Bank acted as sponsor, financial adviser, bookrunner and broker.