Accenture To Buy Consultancy To Boost IT Support For Asset Managers, Investment Service Providers

Accenture said today it will buy Los Angeles-based InvestTech Systems Consulting, a will purchase a company with experience providing systems integration and technology consulting support to blue-chip firms like PNC Financial Services and The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

Dublin-based Accenture, No. 2 on the CRN Solution Provider 500, said InvestTech will help global investment managers, institutional investors and asset services stay in front of new digital innovations and technologies.

"Asset managers are under growing pressure to modernize their investment management and operational infrastructure to support growth, higher efficiency and profitability," Owen Jelf, head of Accenture's Capital Markets practice, said in a statement. "By further expanding our systems integration and consulting capabilities in this area, we will be able to do much more to help our clients."

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InvestTech was founded in 1993, employs fewer than 200 people, and provides front and back-office support for investment firms. The company has developed a suite of proprietary tools and methodologies to serve many of the largest and most complex global asset management firms, according to Jeremy Hurwitz, InvestTech's founder and president.

"Over the past twenty-five years, we've built a team of some of the world's most experienced investment systems professionals," Hurwitz said in a statement. "As part of Accenture, we will be able to bring world-class services to a wider spectrum of clients – from large and mid-sized asset managers to insurance companies, pension plans and hedge funds."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Accenture did not respond to a request for additional comment. The deal is expected to close within the next several weeks, the company said.

InvestTech said it had used proprietary technology to enhance its investment process, architecture, data and technology delivery services to clients. The company has expertise in strategic architecture planning, operations transformation, enterprise data management, investment accounting, portfolio management, trading product evaluation and implementation of leading vendor-provided solutions.

InvestTech's practitioners and technologies average more than 15 years of experience in the front, middle and back offices, according to the company. The company said it has hands-on knowledge of all asset classes and all investment strategies.

The company said it has completed more than 400 engagements for many of the world’s largest asset managers, including insurance and mutual fund companies, pension funds, alternative investment managers, wealth managers and endowments.

InvestTech will become part of Accenture's Capital Markets practice, which provides consulting, strategy, digital technology and outsourcing services. The practice is focused on helping financial institutions drive sales-force effectiveness and improve decision-making by leveraging big data and analytics, and counts seven of the world's top 10 global asset managers among its clientele.

The InvestTech deal is Accenture's second industry-focused asset-management acquisition in a little over a year. It follows the December 2015 purchase of Beacon Consulting Group, which provides management consulting to five of the top 10 North American asset-management firms.

This acquisition comes less than a week after Accenture purchased solid-serVision, one of Germany's largest independent ServiceNow solution providers. Earlier in January, Accenture purchased the corporate and aviation consulting businesses of Seabury Group to help guide airlines through digital disruption.