Backstop Solutions Group, a cloud-based productivity suite provider for institutional and alternative investors, is to acquire BarclayHedge, a provider of alternative investment data and indices.
With proprietary access to the 2,200 alternative investment managers and 6,900 funds tracked by BarclayHedge, Backstop will be able to offer institutional clients a combination of technology, tools, services, and data to help optimise their research management and due diligence workflows. Alternative asset managers who currently report to BarclayHedge will also benefit by having their exposure to asset owners potentially triple when the client communities of both Backstop and BarclayHedge are combined.
Clint Coghill (pictured), Backstop’s Chairman and CEO, says: “Backstop’s vision is to optimise every step of the investment process for institutional and alternative investment firms, from capital raising to investor relations to research and portfolio management. This acquisition supports our vision by removing friction for asset owners conducting research on alternative managers and for alternative asset managers hoping to get their data in front of those asset owners.”
“With BarclayHedge’s premium reputation and meticulous collection of fund, performance, and investment data, we’ll be able to maximise our clients’ research capabilities. Our recent round of financing was undertaken to fuel growth and execute faster against our strategy, and this acquisition helps us do exactly that.”
Backstop remains committed to empowering clients to gain greater visibility into their data, no matter the source. Recent enhancements to the Backstop platform include building a user-centric integration with Preqin’s extensive Private Equity and Real Estate offerings and surfacing the data points throughout views, reports, and tools across the suite. In addition, Backstop continues to partner with other industry-leading data providers such as HFR, Morningstar, EurekaHedge, HFI, and MSCI.
Sol Waksman, Founder and President of BarclayHedge, will become President of the Backstop BarclayHedge Division. In this role, Waksman will continue to make the BarclayHedge database the premier source for research and indices on hedge funds and commodity trading advisors by expanding data coverage and providing thought leadership on alternative investment industry trends to institutional asset owners.
“I’m personally very excited to be joining forces with Backstop and its client base of both asset owners and asset managers. There are many synergies to be unlocked in our respective lines of business, and I look forward to unlocking them,” says Sol Waksman, “We collect over 300 data points per fund manager, providing institutional asset owners with a rich set of information they can rely upon to select the right managers for their portfolios. We can now make those data points available to a new universe of asset owners, as well as provide our fund managers with a more seamless reporting process through better integrated tools. It’s the classic ‘win-win’ for both companies.”
Financial Technology Partners (FT Partners) served as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Backstop Solutions on this transaction.
