Tuesday, January 24, 2006
San Francisco, CA – FTVentures, a leading private equity firm focused on companies offering meaningful solutions within the global financial services industry, announced the sale of PowerShares Capital Management LLC to AMVESCAP PLC for an initial purchase price of $60 million and up to an additional $670 million in contingent payments. PowerShares is a primary provider of exchange traded funds (ETFs) and helped pioneer the industry, developing a distinctive product offering based on intelligent investment indexes. FTVentures was the sole institutional investor in the company, investing in PowerShares in January 2005.
“PowerShares has been on a phenomenal growth trajectory, with assets under management growing 1000% in the last twelve months,” said Ben Cukier, Partner at FTVentures and PowerShares board member. “Bruce Bond, PowerShares’ CEO, had a compelling vision to build an innovative product line delivering superior benefits to consumers. He and his team have successfully implemented this vision, creating one of the fastest growing companies in the asset management industry.”
“PowerShares has been a significant investment for FTVentures and our limited partners,” said Brad Bernstein, Partner at FTVentures and PowerShares board member. “We were initially attracted to the company because it offered a winning combination of a strong management team and a distinctive product offering in a growing market. PowerShares’ success in the marketplace has been extraordinary and we look forward to future collaboration as the company continues to excel in this exciting industry.”
PowerShares, based in Wheaton, IL, currently manages more than $3.5 billion in assets in a family of 36 different ETFs. PowerShares’ product offering is differentiated from others in the marketplace because the ETFs are based on intelligent investment indexes which seek to select stocks with the greatest investment merit within a specified universe, rather than market-weighted benchmark indexes which typically do not regard the investment value of the underlying securities.
About FTVentures
FTVentures provides capital to growth companies to finance organic expansion, recapitalizations, build-ups and buyouts. The firm invests in software and business services companies that derive value from its unmatched Global Partner Network, which includes 38 of the world’s leading financial institutions. FTVentures’ Global Partner Network provides the firm with a unique vantage point into the business driven IT and operating challenges of the global enterprise. Founded in 1998, FTVentures currently has $623 million under management with offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit www.ftventures.com.
About Powershares
PowerShares Capital Management, LLC is an asset management firm headquartered in Wheaton, IL. PowerShares is the advisor and sponsor of PowerShares XTF, a family of ETFs. PowerShares Capital Management LLC seeks to provide compelling investment tools and portfolios for advisors and investors. PowerShares is committed to theoretically sound portfolio construction and empirically verifiable investment management approaches. Its asset management philosophy and investment discipline is deeply rooted in the application of intuitive factor analysis and model implementation to enhance investment decisions.
Contacts
Karen Gilbert
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, FTVENTURES
(415) 229-3000
