Calastone, the largest global funds network, announce that global investment firm The Carlyle Group has today reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake in the business from its current shareholders, including Octopus Ventures and Accel. Calastone management retains a minority stake. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

Founded in 2007, Calastone has grown to become the largest global funds network and has transformed the mutual funds sector through its innovative use of technology and network interoperability. Calastone’s network brings together the entire fund trading process, offering automated order routing, settlement, dividend and transfer services to asset and fund managers.

In May 2019, Calastone launched its Distributed Market Infrastructure (DMI), enabling the full automation and digitalisation of the fund transaction process via distributed ledger technology. Leveraging this technology innovation, Calastone has scaled and diversified its strategy to develop from purely Mutual Fund services to offer automated fund services to the Money Market Funds sector. Today, the company serves over 2,300 clients in 43 countries and territories processing £200 billion of investment value each month.

Funds affiliated with The Carlyle Group will support Calastone in accelerating its growth, including broadening its market-leading product suite as well as the applications of its technology, and international expansion.

Commenting on the acquisition, Calastone’s Chief Executive Officer Julien Hammerson, said, “We have made great strides in the past decade to meet the needs of our customers and their investors in reducing friction and costs within the mutual fund industry. Our business has grown from strength to strength and has created the Distributed Market Infrastructure (DMI), a hugely innovative and market leading DLT based platform to drive yet more efficiency. At the same time, we have continued to expand internationally and created new opportunities in Money Market funds.”