Five Arrows Principal Investments, the mid-market private equity fund backed by the Rothschild Group, and Camwell Management have agreed to acquire an interest in Pirum Systems post-trade market infrastructure technology for the securities finance industry. The proposed transaction remains subject to regulatory approval.

Rupert Perry and Jeff Armstrong, the two co-founders of Pirum, will remain with Pirum and continue as shareholders in the firm. Novitas Partners served as financial advisor to Pirum and its shareholders on this transaction. 

“With the support of our new investors, Pirum will further cement its already unique position at the heart of the securities finance industry. I am personally very excited about the new possibilities to develop further innovative services to support our clients as they respond to ongoing regulatory changes and the need for improved capital efficiency, operational risk management and cost reduction,” said Rajen Sheth, CEO of Pirum.

Upon completion, Donal Smith of Camwell will join Pirum’s board of directors as non-executive Chairman. Smith is co-founder of Credit Benchmark and was previously the CEO of Data Explorers (acquired by Markit in April 2012), CEO of Thomson Financial (Europe and Asia) and CEO of FT.com. 

"Pirum has an outstanding reputation in its marketplace. I believe the market opportunity for Pirum is compelling, creating exciting opportunities to develop services provided by its centralised processing hub," said Smith.

Founded in 2000, Pirum has over the last 15 years delivered a portfolio of post-trade services enabling customers in the wholesale securities finance markets to electronically connect to both their counterparties and other market infrastructure providers.

Pirum’s centralised hub is connected to the internal systems of over 100 market participants, with more than 30 of these being connected to Pirum’s real-time services. The firm’s services are used by both borrowers and lenders as a critical element of their post-trade processes for securities lending, repos and any associated collateral transactions.

Javed Khan, co-managing partner of Five Arrows Principal Investments, said: “We greatly value businesses like Pirum which have products with mission-critical functionality and a proven track record of adding value to their customers in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. We have been highly impressed with the achievements of Rajen and his team, and look forward to working with them in the next phase of the company's growth."