ECI Partners announces investment in IGG

ECI Partners, the growth-focused mid-market private equity firm, announces its investment in Independent Governance Group (IGG), the UK’s leading provider of professional pensions trusteeship and governance services.

IGG was founded in February 2023 following the merger of two long-established firms, Ross Trustees and Independent Trustee Services (ITS), creating a singular destination for best-in-class professional pensions trusteeship, scheme secretarial, pensions managerial and governance services.

LDC first invested in Ross Trustees in November 2020, before backing the creation of IGG. During the partnership, LDC supported CEO Andrew Bradshaw and the wider management team to deliver strong organic and acquisitive growth.

This included significant investment in people and technology, in addition to supporting five complementary acquisitions that further strengthened IGG’s service offering to clients.

Today, IGG employs more than 200 people and its focus on an integrated approach with clients has won it 13 industry awards over the last three years. The business provides professional services to 386 pension schemes with total scheme assets of £324bn.

Over the last 18 months, IGG has established a strong regional presence in Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester alongside its London headquarters. In the process, it has added pensions and employee benefits communications and investment governance expertise to its core services, delivered under the like minds and IC Select brands respectively.

IGG has also invested in significant product and service innovation to help trustee boards fulfil their responsibilities to scheme sponsors and members. This includes the launch of IGGiQ, a proprietary SaaS platform that provides holistic, real-time analysis of a scheme’s investment performance, and the introduction of IGGnite, its consolidated governance model for small pension schemes.

IGG’s commitment to sustainability saw the launch of its Sustainability Charter last year, setting out commitments to work with schemes and industry to promote and drive responsible investment, as well as ensuring the long-term interests of members are best served.

Andrew Bradshaw, CEO commented:

“IGG has rapidly grown into one of the leading providers of trusteeship and governance services in the UK. This is due to the hard work of our skilled and diverse team, which ensures pension schemes of all shapes and sizes look to IGG to deliver the knowledge, experience and perspectives essential for strong governance. Thank you to LDC who have supported us on our journey so far, enabling us to strengthen our market position and achieve key strategic goals.

We are all very excited about the next stage of our journey. With ECI on board alongside the continued support of LDC, we are well-positioned to further accelerate our plans for growth, deliver innovative solutions to meet our clients’ evolving needs and, importantly, create new career opportunities for our talent.”

Michael Butler, Partner at ECI, commented:

“We were attracted by IGG’s fantastic track record of delivering award-winning pension services with excellent client retention, delivered by a highly skilled team. We’re looking forward to working with the IGG team on the next stage of the company’s growth, building on its phenomenal achievements so far. The company provides a strong organic growth opportunity due to growing demand for trustee and governance services as the pension regulatory environment continues to grow in complexity, and we also anticipate acquisitions to further boost growth.”

Chris Handy, Partner at LDC, added:

“Over the last four years, Andrew and the management team at IGG have delivered transformational growth and created a market leader in the pensions industry. We’ve had the privilege of supporting their growth journey and the success they have achieved is testament to the ambition and capability of their entire team. We’re looking forward to continuing our support for the business.”

Advisors to ECI: PwC (Corporate Finance & Commercial Due Diligence), Squire Patton Boggs (Legal), A&M (Financial Due Diligence) & Clearwater (Debt Advisory).

Advisors to LDC and IGG: KPMG (Corporate Finance), PwC (Financial, Commercial and Tax Due Diligence), Gateley (Legal); Eversheds (Management Legal) & Liberty (Management Corporate Finance).

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