Business services firm Vistra has acquired Hong Kong-based corporate services provider Sertus, while Carlyle-owned funds distributor Calastone is expanding its Taiwan team.
Vistra acquires HK’s Sertus
Business services firm Vistra Global Incorporation (Vistra GI) has acquired Hong Kong-based Sertus, a company incorporation and corporate services provider.
The acquisition helps deepen Vistra GI’s capabilities in the six jurisdictions in which Sertus and Vistra GI both operate, including Hong Kong, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Delaware (USA), and Samoa and Seychelles, according to a press release on Tuesday.
Vistra’s acquisition of Sertus comes over a year after BPEA EQT, which has rebranded as EQT Private Capital Asia, merged two Hong Kong-based business service firms Vistra and Tricor in July 2023. The combined entity hit a valuation of $6.5 billion including debt, making it one of Asia’s biggest private equity-backed transactions of the year, per Reuters.
Carlyle-owned Calastone expands Taiwan presence
Calastone, which claims to be the largest global funds network, has boosted its headcount in Taiwan by 12, as the firm emerges to capture over 95% of the island’s market share of fund distributors. The expansion comes almost two years after the fund’s network established its Taipei office in January 2023.
Founded in 2007, London-headquartered Calastone was acquired by The Carlyle Group in October 2020. The acquisition, completed in December 2020, saw Calastone management retain a minority stake post-transaction.
