New York-based private equity firm Bregal Sagemount has made a significant growth investment in Steele Compliance Solutions the parent company of the Steele CIS and Securimate businesses.
The two companies are providers of third party management software and due diligence investigation services focused on the anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) compliance market, including The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA).
As a part of the transaction, the Company announced that founder Kenneth Kurtz will be promoted to the Chairman of the Advisory Board, and that Eric Lochner has been appointed CEO.
"We are very excited to be working with the Bregal Sagemount team," says Kurtz. “Sagemount’s investment will facilitate fantastic opportunities to accelerate Steele’s growth, and their experience will be invaluable in expanding our product development and strengthening our market position. I’m looking forward to continuing my involvement with Steele as Chairman of the Advisory Board, and have great confidence in Eric and our new team members.”
The investment is a strategic fit for Bregal Sagemount and their growth focused approach towards companies specialising in technology-driven business services, data, and software. Steele’s solutions enable large and mid-sized enterprises that conduct business internationally to risk stratify, diligence, train, and monitor their third party distributors, agents, representatives, suppliers, vendors, and joint venture partners to ensure compliance with ABAC laws such as the FCPA and the UK Bribery Act. The Company’s software solution provides critical workflow tools, serves as a consolidated database of all third parties across the enterprise, and retains a documented audit trail specific to ABAC compliance procedures.
“As a result of the constantly evolving regulatory, legislative, and enforcement landscape around FCPA, multinational enterprises are increasingly in need of sophisticated and automated risk management processes,” says Bregal Sagemount founding partner Daniel Kim. “We invested in Steele Compliance because of its holistic software and due diligence solution. This combined offering is uniquely positioned to help clients substantially reduce corruption risk and comply with both internal policy and external requirements.”
New CEO Eric Lochner is a software and professional services industry veteran, having guided Kenexa, a leading talent management system through its acquisition by IBM, where he assumed the role of President of the Global Talent Management SaaS division. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of Achievers.com until it was acquired by Blackhawk Network. Lochner added, “I’m very proud to join the Steele Compliance team, and I am excited to be partnering with Kenn and the Bregal Sagemount team. We’re looking forward to further enhancing our products and services and to continuing our strong client service.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bregal Sagemount’s involvement will be led by Daniel Kim, Pavan Tripathi, and Arjun Mehta. Marks Baughan served as financial advisor and GTC Law Group provided legal counsel to Steele CIS and Securimate. Goodwin Procter provided legal counsel to Bregal Sagemount.
