New Private Equity takes minority stake in ONE group solutions

New Private Equity completed a significant minority investment in ONE group solutions, a Luxembourg provider of third-party fund management and governance services to asset managers worldwide, NPE said on Oct. 19.

Luxembourg's Commission de surveillance du secteur financier approved the transaction, and ONE's founders and management team keep a substantial stake. Chief executive Steve Bernat continues to lead the group, which the release frames as continuity for clients and employees. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ONE sells governance and fund-management services to asset managers, not to wealth allocators directly, so changes at the company reach the wealth channel through the funds those managers run. The stated direction is geographic: the release says ONE intends to reinforce its presence in its main territories of operation and expand in the United States.

Founded in 2019, ONE reports more than 200 clients and close to 200 professionals across eight offices, with growth of more than 35% a year that the release attributes to its governance technology and its team. NPE says the investment is meant to support the next phase of that growth. The release gives no revenue, margin or valuation figures, and puts no size on the minority stake beyond describing it as significant.

NPE invests in software and technology-based services companies, and it created NPE Control Tower, a proprietary end-to-end digital private equity workflow software that it says uses data and technology to generate alpha. The firm says it spotted ONE and validated it as a partner using its own sourcing and underwriting framework, and that it begins creating value during due diligence rather than after closing. The two have already launched programs, starting with a unified data and ontology layer across ONE's workflows. NPE says it will accelerate its partners' development with proprietary tools and applications built on Foundry, which the release calls an industry-leading data infrastructure platform.

Because the position is a minority one and the founders keep a substantial holding, NPE's stated leverage is operational: tools, workflow software and data infrastructure. The release does not describe board seats, governance rights or a route to control. The next visible step is the US build-out ONE describes, paid for with an investment whose size and price stay private.