Orient Capital snaps up King Worldwide Investor Relations

Orient Capital, which has been providing IR services for more than a quarter of a century, has revealed the acquisition of London-based King Worldwide Investor Relations (KWIR) for an undisclosed sum.

The purchase of KWIR, which specializes in shareholder ID in markets where companies can struggle to identify their investors, will expand Orient’s own share ownership identification service, says Alison Owers, the company’s UK CEO.

Orient Capital already offers IR services including share ownership analysis, market intelligence, investor communication, proxy solicitation and shareholder management technology to over 1,500 companies in more than 20 markets. It will now benefit from KWIR’s ‘unique and innovate skills’ delivered through a 30-plus-strong team spread across London, Manila, Cape Town, New York and Madrid.

‘KWIR is an almost perfect fit for our specialization in share register analysis based upon legislative disclosure provisions,’ says Owers, adding in a press statement that the deal ‘will allow us to spread our entire investor relations product suite across EMEA.

Talking to IR Magazine, Owers also explains that once the transition has been completed, ‘KWIR will disappear. We will be running separate business streams for shareholder ID and analysis, but it will all be under Orient Capital.’

Fred Stone, KWIR CEO, adds that Orient’s ‘proprietary technology’ will also serve KWIR clients well. ‘Our clients will immediately benefit from the roll-out of [Orient’s] unique web-based investor relations management platform, miraqle,’ he says in the statement, adding that ‘with Orient Capital, we will be the premier provider of investor relations services, with market-leading shareholder identification and analysis’.

Orient Capital had been looking at the acquisition for some time, adds Owers. ‘We first proposed the idea of joining forces with what was then Capital Precision, back in 2008, shortly before the company was acquired by Sage Holdings, and became part of the King Worldwide Group,’ she explains. ‘Our two businesses really do fit like a glove and, when the opportunity came to acquire the business from the owners of King Worldwide, we jumped at it.’

In a separate deal, Orient also announced the purchase of a 50 percent stake in the European arm of proxy service provider DF King. In what he calls a ‘significant development’ for the firm Orient Capital founder and CEO David Geddes says that ‘aligning ourselves with a company of the reputation and depth of experience in proxy solicitation as DF King delivers real bench strength to our investor relations offering in Europe’.

John Bibas, managing director of DF King (Europe) adds in the statement that the deal will have a ‘material positive impact on the European issuer and shareholder services industry’.

After an initial three-month transition period, Orient Capital says that both the KWIR and DF King (Europe) London teams will be joining Orient’s own 20-strong team.