Capitolis on the Acquisition Trail with LMrkts Buy

Just months after securing Series C funding of $90 million, and weeks after hitting a peak in novation volumes, financial optimisation firm Capitolis has entered into an agreement to acquire LMrkts, a fellow provider of multilateral optimisation and compression services. The proposed acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, is scheduled to close this month subject to certain closing conditions.

The deal will allow Capitolis, which has a strong position in the bilateral compression space, to extend its suite of services to provide banks, asset managers and hedge funds with the “broadest and most complete trade compression solutions available in the market”.

As part of the proposed transaction, the LMrkts team, including co-founders Hilary Park and Sandeep Karkera, will join Capitolis, enhancing the depth of the company’s optimisation talent and its ability to bring additional capabilities, including multilateral compression, to the market.

“At Capitolis, we are well on our way to meeting our audacious goal of transforming capital markets, guided by the tremendous demand we continue to see from the world’s most significant providers of capital,” says Gil Mandelzis, founder and CEO of Capitolis. “With the addition of the fabulous capabilities Hilary, Sandeep, and the LMrkts team have built, we will unlock even greater opportunities to expand our product suite and enhance our technology. Together we move one step closer to a transformed, safer, healthier, and more efficient market.”

Park adds, “I am extremely proud of the company we have built and very thankful to our clients and the LMrkts team whose support has made us a leading multilateral provider in foreign exchange. When Sandeep Karkera and I started LMrkts together with Lucio Biase over eight years ago, demand for network-based optimisation services was just starting to accelerate.

“We have since seen firsthand the far-reaching impact that Capitolis has had on the marketplace over the past four years and know that as one team we will deliver truly exceptional results for our clients,” she continues. “Capitolis shares our vision for the future of capital markets, and we’re proud to be joining forces with them.”

The deal weas welcomed by Itay Tuchman, global head of foreign exchange at Citi, who says, “As a client of both Capitolis and LMrkts, we are delighted to see them team up and look forward to working with the combined entity moving forward. Capitolis is bringing truly innovative solutions to capital markets, and we support the firm’s ambitious vision for the future.”