GTCR-Backed Opus Global Acquires Hiperos in First Acquisition

GTCR-backed Opus Global has made its first acquisition, purchasing Hiperos LLC for an undisclosed amount.

Hiperos provides third-party management software. The Westborough, Massachusetts-based company aims to help companies handle supply-chain risk for companies in the energy, financial services, food, real estate, pharmaceuticals and technology industries.

Private equity firm GTCR formed Palo Alto, California-based Opus Global in connection with Doug Bergeron, a 23-year veteran of the financial technology industry, in September. Bergeron is best known as the former CEO of VeriFone Systems Inc. (NYSE: PAY), a payments technology company backed by GTCR that went public in 2005.

Chicago-based GTCR plans to invest up to $450 million and Bergeron plans to invest up to $50 million in Opus Global. The company plans to become a global financial technology company by buying carve-outs from banks that are under pressure from regulators to divest non-banking assets.

Bergeron led Gores Technology Group's acquisition of VeriFone from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) in 2001, and built it into a payments company that has operations globally. In 2005, he took the company public.

GTCR won Mergers & Acquisitions M&A Mid-Market Private Equity Firm of the Year for 2013. The firm follows the Leaders Strategy for its investments, meaning it finds and partners with management leaders in core domains to acquire and build leading companies. The Hiperos management team will partner with GTCR and Opus Global to continue building the company. For more on GTCR, and the formation of Opus Global, see "A FinTech Star May Be Born."

The PE firm's other recent moves include the purchase of public relations and marketing software company Vocus Inc., which it plans to combine with Cision, another cloud-based public relations software. In March, the firm's portfolio company Sterigenics agreed to buy Noridion Inc., a company that provides services to the health science market, for $727 million.

Also in March, the firm agreed to invest up to $300 million in equity capital to form Maravai Life Sciences Inc., a company that will buy groups and products in the diagnostics and life sciences industry to build a health care business.

Attorneys Jeffrey Geron, Maggie Kavalaris, Kate Buckley, Michael Maryn and Bruce Davison of Dentons provided legal advice to Hiperos on the transaction.