Pasadena’s Vertical Management Systems Sold

HCAP Partners, a San Diego-based private equity firm, has announced the sale of Vertical Management Systems, Inc. (VMS) in Pasadena to NewSpring Holdings, LLC, the dedicated control buyout strategy of NewSpring Capital.

VMS is a leading technology innovation firm founded by Brad Kuhlin and Bob Clancy to provide integrated solutions to the financial services industry. The company’s solutions are designed to solve key issues such as fiduciary risk, fee transparency, and revenue reconciliation.

Today, VMS delivers specialized products built with a focus on full transparency and flexible integrations, and processes over $600 billion in assets, 5 million accounts, and tens of millions of trades annually.

HCAP Partners invested into VMS in 2011 to support the company’s growth and development of its next generation retirement platform, Retirement Revolution. In 2015, VMS hired financial technology veterans Kevin Rafferty as CEO, Bob Ward as CRO and other industry executives to help bring Retirement Revolution to the marketplace.

“We were pleased to partner with Brad and Bob to assist them with their goals to build a successful business and to have a lasting impact on the retirement industry,” Tim Bubnack, Managing Partner of HCAP, said. “Brad recognized that the next phase of growth would require additional expertise. Bringing in industry veterans and an outside private equity group with the focus and experience of NewSpring was a natural step in the progression of the business. VMS has a bright future, and we are glad that the existing employees and management team will participate with NewSpring in further organic growth and future acquisitions.”

“HCAP Partners was a great partner in helping us achieve our goals,” VMS co-founder Kuhlin said. “In addition to bringing in the needed capital, they were an integral and active part of our team, providing valuable advice on governance, senior leadership selection, team incentive structuring, and a number of other topics over the years. I really can’t speak highly enough about them and hope to work with them on other projects in the future.”

In a January 4, press release, VMS CEO Rafferty said partnering with NewSpring Holdings will provide VMS “with the missing pieces to help complete our corporate vision.”

“VMS is well-positioned to meet the increasing demands of this ever-changing financial technology industry,” Rafferty said. “Our solutions address many of today’s regulatory challenges. We will now be able to enhance the investment in our business to continue providing our clients with industry-leading, robust, and innovative processing platforms.”

VMS is a leading provider of data, financial networking, and account aggregation technology. For nearly 25 years, VMS has designed, developed and hosted accounting and securities process-and-control solutions for the largest financial institutions in the U.S.

The company’s three core products include its retirement platform, Retirement Revolution, a leading supplier of next-generation retirement solutions; Mutual Fund Desk (MFD), a mutual fund process-and-control platform; and Specialized Information Services (SIS), a comprehensive source of customized, audited financial data.

For more information about VMS, visit www.vmsholdings.com.