FNZ was founded in 2003 by its former Group CEO, Adrian Durham. It began as a business unit within the New Zealand branch of investment bank
Credit Suisse. This was followed by the expansion of operations to the
UK in 2005, and a
management buyout of the First NZ Capital Group (formerly Credit Suisse) in January 2009 for a price of , backed by private equity firm
H.I.G. Capital. In 2012, global growth equity firm
General Atlantic acquired a minority share in FNZ. In June 2013,
Lord Leitch was appointed Group Chairman of FNZ. In October 2018,
CDPQ and
Generation Investment Management agreed to purchase the two-thirds ownership of FNZ from HIG Capital and General Atlantic in a deal valuing FNZ at . In February 2020,
Temasek acquired a stake in FNZ. In February 2022, FNZ raised US$1.4 billion in new capital from CPP Investments and Motive Partners which valued FNZ at US$20 billion. In September 2024,
Blythe Masters succeeded Adrian Durham as Group CEO. Durham became a non-executive founding director and senior adviser, remaining on the board as a major shareholder. At the same time, Roman Regelman joined as Group President. At the same time, FNZ announced a further US$1bn of capital from its existing institutional investors. Gregor Stewart was appointed as Group Chair in 2024, with
Lord Leitch becoming Group Chair Emeritus.
Acquisitions In 2018, FNZ completed the acquisition of German investment platform company, ebase (European Bank for Financial Services) from Commerzbank. In July 2019, FNZ acquired London-based JHC Systems Ltd, a provider of platform software to the wealth management industry. In 2020, FNZ acquired Irish third-party administration provider Irish Progressive Services International (IPSI) from
Irish Life. In 2021 it acquired South African third-party administration firm Silica from
Ninety One plc, and it acquired investment platform Hatch from Kiwi Wealth. In 2022, it acquired Icelandic identity verification and privacy company Authenteq, Zurich-based client onboarding firm Appway, Swiss private banking technology company New Access, and German wealth-tech provider Diamos. In 2023, it acquired US-based fixed-income fintech YieldX, Luxembourg-based B2B fund platform ifsam, and Germany's Fondsdepot Bank. == References ==