Mourant acquires Redbridge

International legal and specialist services provider Mourant has acquired private equity fund administrator Redbridge Offshore Limited for an undisclosed sum. Redbridge has funds under administration in excess of $5.2 billion of committed capital. The company will operate as part of Mourant’s international finance administration division, a major Jersey-based fund administrator with around $14 billion assets under administration.

Increasingly, private equity houses are seeking outsourced administration to meet the need for greater transparency and increasing legal and financial regulation, says Nicola Davies, deputy managing partner at Mourant.

John Loveridge and Michell Bewey will continue as managing director and executive director respectively of the group. In addition to well-established offices in Jersey and London, Mourant has recently opened for business in Luxembourg and following the acquisition will continue to expand. Nicola Davies said: “The acquisition is very much part and parcel of a strategy we came up with three years ago. We have offices in Jersey, London and Luxembourg – Guernsey is our latest addition. We also have a subsidiary company in Ireland that is not set up to do funds business yet.” When the group becomes active in Ireland it will have covered 95 per cent of clients’ needs, says Davies.

Business is healthy, she says. “Funds have taken a bit of a battering – particularly tech funds. The market has been tighter than in the past, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped business.”