Blackstone to scoop up Promontory Interfinancial

Blackstone Group is buying Promontory Interfinancial Network for $2.5 billion, sources told Buyouts.

Launched in 2002, Promontory provides technology-based services to banks to help them retain large-dollar relationships. The Arlington, Virginia, fintech supplies balance sheet management as well as deposit allocation services to 3,000 financial institutions, the company’s website said. Mark Jacobsen, Promontory’s president and CEO, is the former chief of staff at the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Eugene Ludwig, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, founded Promontory Interfinancial with several other leading bank executives, including Alan Blinder, ex-vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jacobsen and Alfred Moses, a former partner at Covington & Burling. (In 1999, President Bill Clinton named Moses his special presidential emissary for the Cyprus problem. Moses also served as U.S. Ambassador to Romania from 1994 to 1997.)

Promontory was envisioned as a network comprised of thousands of financial institutions whose “synthetic size” would help each member institution compete more efficiently, a statement said.

Ludwig also founded Promontory Financial Group, a consultancy, that IBM acquired in 2016.

News of the Promontory Interfinancial sale was previously reported by Acuris.

Executives for Promontory and Blackstone declined comment.

Action Item: See Promontory’s presentation on when a fintech is ready to serve a bank here.