Vistra acquires another Irish entity as it expands presence
Vistra Group, the Hong Kong-based corporate services, trust, fiduciary, private office and fund administration services provider, has added to its growing Irish presence with the acquisition of Shannon, Ireland-based Canyon CTS, a boutique capital markets corporate and trust business with outposts in Dublin and New York.
The purchase price and other details of the acquisition weren’t given in a statement announcing the deal on Tuesday.
Founded in late 2014, Canyon has grown to a team of 32, and will remain largely the same under Vistra’s ownership, with its existing managing director, founder Andrew Ryan, continuing to head up the business, Vistra said.
News of Vistra’s acquisition of Canyon comes a month after it announced it had acquired Dublin-based Squires Gilbride, and six months after it unveiled its takeover of the Corporate Services business of Deutsche Bank’s Global Transaction Banking division, which had a presence Ireland as well as seven other jurisdictions.
Canyon provides corporate and trust services for structured finance deals as well as corporate restructuring support and services for the aircraft leasing industry, including asset-backed securitisation (ABS) transactions. It has recently been named as the managing agent on three aircraft leasing ABS contracts, Vistra noted.
Martin Crawford, chief executive of Vistra, noted that although Canyon had been in business a relatively short period of time, it had managed to build itself a “distinguished reputation”, while growing “exponentially” and during this time, developing a strong relationship with Vistra.
“We have seen the importance of Ireland in the capital markets sector, in particular in aircraft leasing,” he added.
“Strengthening our presence in Ireland through this acquisition will also enable us to extend our client offerings.
“We are delighted to welcome Andrew Ryan and his team to the Vistra family.”
Vistra – which merged with a Hong Kong-based corporate formation specialist named OIL in 2011 that re-branded as Vistra last February – has been expanding its geographic footprint rapidly over the past few years.
As reported, it opened its first-ever office in Sweden inJanuary, which also represented its first Nordic market outpost, as it prepared to cater for what it said were “outbound business opportunities” seen to exist there.
Last year, in addition to acquiring the Deutsche Bank corporate services operation as noted above, it acquired at least four businesses, and thus expanded its reach, in Australia, India, Monaco and Dubai.
