DLA Piper has advised global alternative asset management firm, the Carlyle Group, on its acquisition of ITRS, a provider of real-time monitoring systems for the world’s financial institutions.

Headquartered in London with offices in New York, Hong Kong and Manila, ITRS has over 600 installations worldwide including 60 implemented in leading financial institutions and eight of the top ten global investment banks and several brokers, exchanges, hedge funds and data vendors. 

The Carlyle Group’s acquisition will facilitate ITRS’ international expansion and product diversification plans, enabling its clients to continue to be at the forefront of the market’s evolving demand for continuous real-time risk and performance monitoring of trading platforms. Equity for this investment will come from Carlyle Europe Technology Partners II (CETP II), a €530 million fund that closed in November 2008. 

The DLA Piper team was led by partner and Head of M&A (EMEA) Bob Bishop and associate Chris Baird in London. The complex cross-border nature of the transaction required a team of lawyers from Europe, Asia and the US with expertise that included M&A, Employment, Tax and Intellectual Property & Technology. 

Bob Bishop said: “we were delighted to be able to advise the Carlyle Group on its acquisition of ITRS, a transaction playing to our mutual strengths in the technology sector. ITRS will be well placed to deliver on its plans for international expansion and product diversification by leveraging the considerable resources of the Carlyle Group.” 

Fernando Chueca, director at the Carlyle Group, added: “in an environment where financial institutions are increasingly challenged by the growing cost and complexity of running high-performance trading infrastructure, whilst at the same time coping with mounting regulatory pressure to manage the operational risk of potential systems outages, ITRS is emerging as a best-of-breed solutions provider for real-time application and infrastructure monitoring. Our acquisition of the company will enable us to invest in its very promising future. The team at DLA Piper covered all the legal aspects of the transaction, from negotiation of the legal documentation to tax structuring and was a great contributor to getting the transaction closed in a very expeditious and efficient manner.”