Financial services group JP Morgan Chase has agreed to buy UK-headquartered digital wealth manager Nutmeg, enabling financial services firm Fubon Financial Holdings and investment banks Goldman Sachs and Schroders to exit.
Although the companies did not disclose the size of the transaction, a source close to the deal told Reuters it was sized at nearly £700m ($980m).
Nutmeg operates a digital platform which manages investments for some 140,000 customers, offering a range of products including passively managed exchange-traded funds powered by JP Morgan Chase’s asset management business, JP Morgan Asset Management.
The company is being bought to be the centrepiece of JP Morgan Chase’s international retail digital wealth management activities as it prepares to launch Chase as a digital bank in the UK.
JPMorgan Chase’s CEO of international consumer, Sanoke Viswanathan, said: “We are building Chase in the UK from scratch using the very latest technology and putting the customer’s experience at the heart of our offering, principles that Nutmeg shares with us.
“We look forward to positioning their award-winning products alongside our own and continuing to support their innovative work in retail wealth management.”
Nutmeg had raised about $130m pre-acquisition, $58.3m coming in an early 2019 round co-led by Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments and financial advisory firm Convoy.
Convoy had previously led Nutmeg’s series D round, which closed at $52m in 2016, investing with Schroders, Fubon Financial Holdings subsidiary Taipei Fubon Bank, Balderton Capital, Pentech, Armada Investment Group and Nigel Wray.
The company’s earlier funding had come from Schroders, Pentech, Balderton Capital, Draper Associates and private investors including Daniel Aegerter, Charles Dunstone, Tim Draper and Klaus Hommels.
