The New York-based research firm that acquired Toronto’s Investor Economics Inc. last year has now been bought by a U.S. private equity firm.
San Francisco-based Genstar Capital Management LLC announced Friday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire, Asset International Inc., which provides data, analytics, and marketing products to the global asset management industry. In February last year, Asset International acquired Investor Economics, a leading source of data and research for the Canadian financial industry.
The transaction is expected to close in July, subject to customary closing conditions.
“Asset International is a strong, vertically focused information services business that we have followed for several years, and it is an exciting platform from which to build a global leader in financial data and marketing services,” said Tony Salewski, principal of Genstar. “Given the significant fragmentation among information providers globally, we have also committed capital to pursue acquisitions.”
Chairman and CEO of AI, Jim Casella, said, “We are uniquely positioned to grow our client base and benefit from the long-term growth in retirement saving and planning driven by aging demographic trends worldwide. With Genstar’s help and expertise we will better capitalize on opportunities within our existing base of large enterprise clients, expand the product portfolio into adjacent sectors, and increase market share in underpenetrated international geographies.”