Pico Signs Agreement with Golden Gate Capital for $200m Investment to Accelerate Next Phase of M&A Activity

Pico, a provider of mission critical technology services, software, data and analytics for the financial markets community, today announced it has signed an agreement for a $200 million strategic investment from Golden Gate Capital, a leading private equity investment firm.

The capital will be used to pursue strategic M&A opportunities that further enhance Pico’s comprehensive global ecosystem of best-in-class technology and services, as well as other general corporate purposes.

“Pico is an impressive company, underscored by a compelling portfolio of technology services, sophisticated client network, unparalleled client experience and proven M&A track record,” said Dan Haspel, a Managing Director at Golden Gate Capital. “We look forward to partnering with Jarrod, the Board and the rest of Pico’s management team to accelerate the Company’s momentum by pursuing additional acquisitions and making additional investments in the business that enable Pico to deepen its leadership in the market and continue to capture additional growth opportunities.”

“We have made significant investments in global expansion, product innovation, operational excellence and in our organization, thereby laying the foundation to support the next wave of substantial growth. We are thrilled to have Golden Gate Capital as an investor and strategic partner supporting us to continue leveraging our leading global technology and data platform to provide additional services for our clients,” said Jarrod Yuster, Chairman, Founder and CEO of Pico. “Golden Gate Capital’s deep financial services experience and track record of successful acquisitions at their portfolio companies will help advance our strategy.”

Pico was founded in 2009 to address the macro trends in electronification of markets across all asset classes. Since then, it has consistently anticipated market requirements and now offers comprehensive financial services trading cloud infrastructure, connectivity, data, software and analytic solutions spanning 55 data centers traversing all key global market centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Pico sits at the center of a complex ecosystem powering mission critical applications for more than 430 clients, including the top 25 global banks, 39 exchanges, electronic market makers as well as premier asset managers.

With this investment, Pico will continue to build on the strategic investments it has made in its high-performance, resilient infrastructure and in continuing to extend its data offering and market coverage across all regions and asset classes. Pico has a proven record of acquiring and integrating companies into its technology platform. In 2019 it acquired market leading trading and enterprise analytics solution Corvil Analytics and has continued to enhance its capabilities. It is replicating this strategy with the January 2022 acquisition of Redline Trading Solutions, a provider of multi award-winning trading and market data software solutions. Strengthening its technology platform with Redline gives Pico a significant opportunity to access the $36 billion [1] addressable market for global data consumption, in addition to the growing $130 billion market infrastructure addressable market.

Existing Pico strategic investors and clients include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, J.P. Morgan, UBS, CE Innovation Capital, DRW Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Singapore-based global investor EDBI, Nomura and Chicago Trading Company.

Additional transaction details are not being disclosed. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor and DLA Piper LLP served as legal advisor to Pico. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as legal advisor to Golden Gate Capital.

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Pathstone and Dyson, which will combine to become one of the largest RIAs in the Washington, D.C., metro area, both said they are “well aligned in terms of philosophy and strategy.” The two firms have pursued a strategy focused on developing financial solutions for the wealthiest families and were early to join the industrywide trend of offering additional services such as accounting, bill pay, financial administration and wealth planning.

Dyson clients will now gain access to all Pathstone services, including financial education, ESG and impact investing initiatives.

“We are thrilled to be joining with long-time friends in the industry who share our collective vision,” said Perrins, Dyson’s managing director. “It is fitting that clients brought us together, and as one firm our ability to serve those clients will be taken to the next level. The combined firms’ scale will benefit both organizations’ clients by delivering greater access to value-added client solutions.”

“Each time Pathstone has combined with another firm, it has been about getting better and not just bigger,” added Pathstone President Kelly Maregni. “As with our other transactions, there is a lot we can learn from Dyson. Their focus on private investments, client solutions, technology and alternatives made this particularly interesting for Pathstone.”

This is the third acquisition Pathstone, backed by private equity firm Lovell Minnick Partners since 2019, has made in 2022. In May, the firm acquired direct indexer Advisor Partners, with $1.9bn in assets. In March, Pathstone bought a $3bn portion of Eaton Vance WaterOak Advisors from Morgan Stanley.

The Dyson acquisition will bring Pathstone’s total assets under advisement to around $38bn. Based in Englewood, N.J., Pathstone will now have 14 locations with 295 team members, more than 115 of whom are shareholders of the firm.

Source: Wealth Management