Envestnet is once again a private company and has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
Bain Capital’s acquisition of the company officially closed on Monday, with the private equity firm paying about $4.5 billion for Envestnet, according to an announcement.
The behemoth technology firm works with more than 500 of the nation’s largest RIA firms, has over 111,000 advisors and holds $6.5 trillion in total assets on its platform.
Stockholders overwhelmingly agreed to the merger at a special meeting in September. A preliminary tally of votes indicated that more than 99% of stockholders agreed to the acquisition.
Reverence Capital and Norwest participated in the transaction, as did strategic partners BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Franklin Templeton and State Street Global, which hold minority shares in the business.
“This represents an exciting new chapter in Envestnet’s history, paving the way for accelerated growth and building on our position as a leading wealth management platform in the industry,” said Jim Fox, board chair and interim CEO for Envestnet, in a statement.
Fox was named interim CEO when Bill Crager stepped down earlier this year. In a new SEC filing, the company revealed Fox’s contract had been extended to the end of January 2025. According to a company spokesperson, the closing of the deal does not impact the ongoing CEO search.
Throughout the period since the announced acquisition, Envestnet has continued to work on partnerships, integrations and consolidation and expansion of its managed account offerings.
Axos Clearing, the clearing and custody arm of Axos Financial, announced a strategic partnership with Envestnet at the beginning of November. In this partnership, Envestnet’s managed account technology would be integrated into Axos Clearing’s Axos Complete workstation, which serves registered investment advisors, hybrid advisors and independent broker/dealers.
In September, Envestnet made several announcements, including improvements to BillFin, the cloud-based advisory billing software for RIAs that resulted from its acquisition of Redi2 Technologies in 2022, the rollout of Workplace for RIAs, and the availability of fund strategist portfolios from partners that was first announced in June.
Envestnet has been subject to takeover speculation since CEO Judson Bergman and his wife, Mary Miller, died in a San Francisco car accident in 2019. Rumors of Bain’s interest first surfaced in April.
Bergman and then-Envestnet President Crager led the firm through a 2010 IPO, raising $30 million (Crager became CEO in 2020).
The firm was founded in 1999 and made its first acquisition of managed accounts provider Portfolio Management Consultants (PMC) in 2001.
