Foreside Acquires Capital Markets Compliance

Fifth acquisition since 2019 bolsters Foreside’s FINOP practice and tech solutions, especially with broker-dealers and investment advisors

PORTLAND, Maine--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Foreside Financial Group, LLC (“Foreside”), a provider of governance, risk management, and compliance service and technology offerings to clients in the global asset and wealth management industry, today announced that it plans to acquire Capital Markets Compliance (CMC), a leading compliance, consulting, and FINOP practice.

Founded in 1999 and based in Atlanta, CMC serves financial services firms that offer securities products through full-service brokerage operations, investment banking, and investment advisory services. With a comprehensive suite of services and technology solutions, Foreside will integrate CMC’s proprietary technology into its platforms. As part of the acquisition, CMC’s managing team of Karen Lopez Alvarez and Rick Alvarez, along with 13 employees, will join Foreside.

“We are proud to demonstrate our continued growth with the acquisition of CMC,” said David Whitaker, President of Foreside. “Their highly regarded and successful practice complements our FINOP, Broker-Dealer, and Investment Advisor consulting businesses, expands our accounting and financial support capabilities, and augments our existing tech solutions to provide a consistent quality of client service and industry expertise that we continue to enhance through these types of acquisitions.”

“We’ve been approached in the past with acquisition opportunities and were wanting to scale the business, but were striving to find the right fit, depth of expertise, and intrinsic knowledge of our industry,” said Karen Lopez Alvarez. “We feel we’ve found the perfect partner in Foreside whose customized service model and technology matches ours, and whose operational strength will help alleviate the day-to-day responsibilities and allow us to better focus on growing the business.”

For Foreside, which is majority-owned by PE firm Lovell Minnick, CMC is its fifth acquisition since 2019. Foreside previously acquired ICSGroup, a regulatory compliance services firm serving the asset management industry (November 2020); Quasar Distributors, U.S. Bancorp’s mutual fund and exchange-traded funds (“ETFs”) distribution business (March 2020); Compliance Advisory Services, a leading regional compliance firm (in October 2019); and NCS Regulatory Compliance, a comprehensive provider of outsourced compliance and regulatory services (January 2019).

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Capital Markets Compliance

Capital Markets Compliance^® (CMC) specializes in providing regulatory guidance for financial service firms that offer securities products through full service brokerage operations, investment banking, and investment advisory services. CMC is known as a leader in compliance & accounting for financial service firms and a trusted advisor to the financial industry for more than 21 years. CMC provides an array of compliance and accounting service solutions designed to help improve business performance. CMC delivers a comprehensive suite of services based on their clients’ individual needs, which also includes assistance with regulatory membership applications, such as Broker-Dealer FINRA, SEC & MSRB and Investment Advisor State and SEC.

About Foreside Financial Group

Foreside delivers comprehensive advice and best-in-class technology solutions to clients in the global asset and wealth management industries. Foreside distributes more than $1 trillion* of product through their 17 limited purpose broker-dealers. For 15 years, Foreside’s suite of services and platform-based model have helped automate and simplify compliance and marketing for clients. Foreside works with pooled investment products, investment advisors, broker-dealers, global asset managers and other financial institutions.

By harnessing state-of-the-art technology, Foreside helps firms address and shape today’s regulatory environment, drive operational efficiency and growth, and focus on value-adding work. Foreside is headquartered in Portland, Maine, with numerous regional offices, including New York and Boston. For more information on Foreside’s suite of services, please visit www.foreside.com.

*as of 1/1/2021