GTCR, a leading private equity firm, today announced that Opus Global Holdings, LLC (“Opus Global”), its management partnership led by former VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron, has acquired Hiperos, LLC (“Hiperos”). Hiperos is a rapidly growing global specialist in third party management, connecting many of the world’s largest companies to over 300,000 third parties. Hiperos’ rapidly deployable, highly flexible SaaS-based solutions serve the third party-related information management, risk, compliance and performance needs of Global 2000 companies such as Aetna, Alcoa, AON, AstraZeneca, AXA, Bank of Montreal, CA Technologies, Charles Schwab, Kraft Foods, Mondelez, Microsoft, News Corporation, PNC Bank, Rockwell Automation, Sun Life Financial, State Street, TD Bank, and United Technologies.
“We are extremely excited to make Hiperos the initial platform for Opus Global’s long-term vision in risk and compliance”
The investment in Hiperos illustrates GTCR’s and Opus Global’s focus on assembling a market-leading risk and compliance platform. Strong secular growth in this area is being driven by a significant number of market, legal and regulatory trends, and there are few providers of effective technology solutions aimed at managing global compliance imperatives.
Hiperos, with its unique, purpose-built and highly scalable solutions, is an ideal platform for executing on this thesis. GTCR and Opus Global – in partnership with Hiperos’ current management team and CEO Greg Dickinson – will look to accelerate the Company’s strong rate of organic growth by investing in global expansion and product development that further establishes its market leadership in third-party management. In addition, GTCR and Opus Global believe there are a number of opportunities to supplement Hiperos’ organic growth with complementary acquisitions.
“Risk and compliance, and the burgeoning third-party management sector in particular, represents an enormous and underserved market for innovative applications, particularly among large enterprises. As we assemble the key components of our risk and compliance platform, we will seek to build the leading compliance and risk management partner to all of the Global 2000,” said Opus Global CEO Doug Bergeron. “I am excited to once again partner with GTCR, and look forward to working with Greg Dickinson and the rest of Hiperos’ extremely accomplished management team as we invest together in the next stage of the Company’s growth.”
“We are extremely excited to make Hiperos the initial platform for Opus Global’s long-term vision in risk and compliance,” said GTCR Managing Director Collin E. Roche. “This is a market in which we have a tremendous amount of interest and expertise, and we believe the intersection of mounting regulatory imperatives, increased complexity and growing corporate focus on risk management represents an enormous opportunity for innovative solution providers that can improve the business processes exposed to these corporate requirements and related risks. Hiperos is well-positioned to capitalize on these trends, and we are excited to once again partner with Doug Bergeron.”
Added Aaron D. Cohen, Managing Director at GTCR, “Michele Flynn, Greg Dickinson and the Hiperos management team have done a remarkable job in building a company capable of meeting the third-party management needs of many of the world’s largest corporations. With Doug Bergeron’s experience in building and managing global businesses and GTCR’s considerable capital backing, we look forward to supporting and accelerating Hiperos’ growth through investment in distribution, infrastructure and innovative product development.”
GTCR’s investment in Hiperos will be made from GTCR Fund X, a private equity fund with $3.25 billion of committed capital.
Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel and Ernst & Young served as accounting advisor to GTCR.