K1 Partners With Actiance and Smarsh for Global Compliance and Information Archiving

PRESS RELEASE

Los Angeles, Calif., Portland, Ore. and Redwood City, Calif. – November 15, 2017 – K1 Investment Management today announced the acquisition of Actiance, a pioneer in communications compliance, archiving, and analytics. Pending regulatory approval from government authorities, Actiance will combine with Smarsh, which provides comprehensive archiving solutions for compliance, e-discovery and risk management, creating the clear, global market leader in compliance and enterprise information archiving. The combined company will serve more than 6,500 financial services firms ─ including the top 15 global banks and regional, mid-size banks and broker-dealers ─ as well as government agencies and organizations in other regulated industries.

“The Financial Services sector is undergoing rapid change ─ legacy technologies are no longer sufficient to comply with SEC and FINRA standards, let alone MiFID II,” said Neil Malik, Managing Partner at K1. “This combination of capabilities from Actiance and Smarsh provides the industry with a means to get ahead – and stay ahead – of compliance trends, while introducing the latest communications technologies to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the modern enterprise.”

More organizations are finding that gaps in retention and supervision programs have consequences. According to a recent study of disciplinary actions from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), 99 books and records cases were reported in 2016, resulting in a 435% increase in fines compared to 2015.¹ Regulatory examinations have become more comprehensive, with more scrutiny aimed at the recordkeeping and supervision of electronic communications.

The combination allows leading financial and government institutions to stay ahead of compliance within an increasingly complex and evolving legal and regulatory environment. Together, the combined company offers deployment options (cloud, dedicated, on-premise, and hybrid) to meet the needs of its customers and provides capture, compliance, archiving, and supervision support across the broadest range of electronic communications, including email, social media, mobile messaging, instant messaging/collaboration, encrypted chat and voice communications. It will continue to support both company’s product lines while providing customers greater value and flexibility. Near-term priorities include more investment in product capabilities, increased flexibility in deployment options, accelerated expansion in Europe and development of a joint channel partner program. 

“Together, Actiance and Smarsh uniquely enable global customers across industries to capture, record, store, and analyze over 100 content types,” said Kailash Ambwani, CEO of Actiance. “By integrating best-of-breed capture, archiving, and surveillance solutions with industry-leading expertise, Actiance and Smarsh are incredibly well-positioned to address the growing needs of global banks, financial services firms, and other regulated organizations. Together we will enhance our combined sales and distribution capabilities, offer our customers additional resources and services, and accelerate our product development.”

“Our customers will be able to provide greater flexibility to their employees by not having to compromise on their choice of communications channels, deployment models, or compliance needs,” said Stephen Marsh, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Smarsh. “Perhaps most importantly, organizations with legacy, on-premise capture and archiving solutions can make the overdue transition to upgraded and more modern solutions. All of this is now possible through a single provider.”

The combined organization will build upon the strong growth of both Smarsh and Actiance, and will maintain operations in Oregon, California, New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, North Carolina, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

¹ Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP (2/28/17) “Annual Eversheds Sutherland Analysis of FINRA Cases Shows Record-Breaking 2016.” Retrieved from https://us.eversheds-sutherland.com/NewsCommentary/Press-Releases/197511/Annual-Eversheds-Sutherland-Analysis-of-FINRA-Cases-Shows-Record-Breaking-2016