Butterfield acquires Legis trust business

Bermuda head-quartered Bank of NT Butterfield & Son Limited (“Butterfield”) has announced that it is to acquire the trust and corporate services business of Guernsey based Legis Group (“Legis”).

Thirty-five staff will move from Legis to Butterfield in the deal, which is Butterfield’s first acquisition since 2007, when it acquired the Bentley Reid Group.  Butterfield Group operates it trust business from five jurisdictions: the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Switzerland.

Essentially, the deal (which remains subject to regulatory approval) will hive off Legis’s private client business to Butterfield, leaving Legis, and the 50 or so staff who will remain with it, to focus on fund administration and tax advisory services. 

Legis was established over 30 years ago by partners of Ozannes law firm (now part of Mourant Ozannes) and was acquired by the management team in 2011.  The Butterfield transaction follows a trend for specialization within the industry.

AnaCap-backed First Names Group continues its acquisition agenda

The First Names Group (formerly IFG International), the Isle of Man head-quartered trust company continues its rapid expansion with the acquisition of Mercator Trust in Guernsey.

This is the fourth acquisition for FNG since AnaCap backed its buy out in July 2012.  FNG has previously acquired the Basel Group, Citadel and Moore Management and this latest acquisition, which remains subject to regulatory approval, will take staff head-count over 520 people, making it one of the larger offshore fiduciary groups.

FNG now has offices in IoM, Jersey, Guernsey, Cyprus, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland, UK, BVI and Japan, although its remains primarily IoM and Channel Islands centric in terms of headcount.

Mercator has existed for over 30 years in Guernsey, and originally spun out of an accountancy firm.

Mercator’s trust and corporate services business will change its name to First Names Group later this year, while its funds business will be incorporated into the Moore Management brand.

FNG is following a buy-and-build strategy which has been adopted by many of the private-equity backed fiduciary services businesses, including Intertrust, Vistra, TMF, Sanne Group, Hawksford and JTC.  They all seek to build scale in what remains a fragmented market with regulatory pressures pushing smaller firms into consolidation.