Ethos Partners LLP (“Ethos”), one of Europe’s most active lower mid-market investors, is pleased to announce it has signed an agreement for the sale of Cosegic Limited (“Cosegic”), one of the UK’s leading compliance consultancies, to MML Capital (“MML”), an international mid-market private equity firm.
Cosegic is a UK-based provider of compliance consultancy and RegTech services for firms that offer regulated financial services. It was acquired in March 2021 (then Compliancy Services) to facilitate the retirement of majority owner Ben Mason. Founded in 2003, Cosegic is a market leader in its sector. Cosegic addresses an attractive growing market driven by regulatory change and provides business-critical services to a broad spread of regulated financial services clients. They help clients become authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (‘PRA’) and manage their ongoing compliance and regulatory obligations.
In June 2022, the company completed the bolt-on of Portman Compliance, owned and led by Nancy King, after which the enlarged group became known as Cosegic. The combination enabled Cosegic to double the size of its specialist funds team and boost the company’s overall headcount to close to 60 staff, servicing over 800 clients across its specialist teams. The deal saw Portman’s portfolio of over 150 clients, the majority of which were hedge funds and private equity businesses, serviced within the rebranded Cosegic business. In November 2022, Adam Holden joined as CFO.
Scott Bannerman said: “The partnership with Cosegic has been a very successful journey driven by an outstanding management team. The company has delivered an impressive performance, growing considerably both organically and through the acquisition of Portman Compliance, and we believe that Cosegic is well positioned to continue its growth story. We have been delighted to support Philip, Nancy and Adam during this phase of the company’s growth.”
Philip Naughton, CEO of Cosegic said: “Scott and the wider Ethos team were hugely supportive in helping me and my team realise our vision for Cosegic and in particular our merger with Portman Compliance. From my first meeting with members of the Ethos team back in late 2020, I was very impressed by how personable and open they were. From the outset I had a good sense that they were the right fit as backers of Cosegic in terms of culture, outlook, drive and passion and I wasn’t proven wrong. I would highly recommend Ethos to any business seeking a true partnership involving private equity backing”.
Cosegic were advised by Arrowpoint Advisory (corporate finance), HCR (legal), Grant Thornton (financial), CIL (commercial), Quantuma (management advice) and Shoosmiths (management legals)
