The wealth management arm of Britain’s Barclays bank will retain a stake of 19.9% in the company, since rebranded Zedra, following regulatory approval of the deal across all of its international jurisdictions.
The Barlays unit was a long-established trust and fiduciary services business with a 50-year history and more than 300 people serving clients across its core locations: Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands, Singapore, the UK, and Switzerland.
No private equity investor
Zedra said the company’s new independence provides a platform from which the services it provides to clients and advisers can be expanded in both existing and new markets. The company’s ambitious long-term growth plans also represent a break with recent trends in the sector, it being the first global trust business to be acquired without a private equity investor for almost 10 years.
Zedra has a strong and experienced board of directors, which includes Yves Deschenaux as chairman, Bart Deconinck as group deputy chairman, Niels Nielsen as group chief executive, and Ali Sarikhani as non-executive director.
Experience and growth
The independent investor group, led by the Sarikhani and Nielsen families, brings significant experience in the sector, having operated in the trust industry for more than 30 years. During that time, it has successfully invested in and contributed to the development of several companies in the sector including Vistra Group, Vestra Wealth, Intertrust, Kinetic Partners, Chiltern Group and Azure Trust.
Azure Trust will be merged into Zedra.
Growth platform
Nielsen said: “This is one of the longest-established trust businesses in the world with a heritage which, combined with our own experience in the sector, creates a powerful platform for growth.”
Deconinck said: “The trust industry is at an important point with a combination of both challenges and opportunities. An increasingly complex regulatory and compliance landscape demands expertise, strength, and depth to ensure that clients’ interests are best served within the new realities of our marketplace.
“This is the first global trust business to be acquired outside the private equity space for almost a decade and we intend to invest in positioning the company for long-term, sustainable growth.”
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
