Carlyle Acquires Intelliflo for $200mm

Carlyle, the US-based private equity firm, announced today that they are acquiring Intelliflo, the UK-based end-to-end advisor platform from its parent, Invesco. Carlyle is paying $200mm -- $135mm in cash up-front and $65mm in deferred incentives. Invesco paid about $255mm for Intelliflo back in 2018. They also bought RedBlack in 2019 for an undisclosed amount, which they folded into Intelliflo and is going to Carlyle as well.

It's pretty tough to call this consolidation, though: (1) it will continue to operate independently given that it is going to be a platform company for Carlyle and (2) they are actually going to separate RedBlack out from Intelliflo and have it operate in the US as an independent company under separate management.

We have seen a substantial pickup in interest in WealthTech from the private equity community over the last two years. Our pet theory is that private equity's journey with RIA aggregators has shown them how important the technology piece is to the whole roll-up thesis. Their problem is usually that private equity likes to spend $200mm+ when they make a platform acquisition, and there are only so many WealthTech properties available at that level. After they make a platform purchase, they typically look for bolt-on acquisitions, and I would be surprised if Carlyle were any exception to this.

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