Huntington Capital Invests in Vertical Management

Huntington Capital Fund II, the San Diego-based lower middle market private equity mezzanine fund, has invested in Vertical Management Systems Inc., a California-based technology company working with financial services companies. Madison Street Capital, LLC acted as the exclusive financial advisor in arranging the financing. Specifics were not publicized.

PRESS RELEASE:

Huntington Capital Fund II, LP (“Huntington”), a San Diego based lower-middle market focused private equity mezzanine fund, is pleased to announce a recent investment in Vertical Management Systems, Inc. (“VMS”), a Southern California-based technology innovation firm operating in the financial services space. Madison Street Capital, LLC acted as the exclusive financial advisor in arranging the financing.

Founded in 1992 and based in Pasadena, CA, VMS specializes in the design, construction and hosting of a variety of accounting and process and control software tools for the Fortune 500 Financial Services market. The company’s technology suite renders mutual fund-based business processes hands-free and volume insensitive, with respect to both number of accounts and the number of financial transactions occurring within them.

VMS’s latest creation which it is beginning to commercialize now represents a wholesale re-plumbing of the technology supply chain for retirement servicing. The solution is entirely internet-centered and socially networked. It stands to disrupt the way retirement plans are serviced today, by challenging an industry-wide dependence on rigid and brittle technology foundations that are immovable and decades’ old in the making. VMS’s new servicing platform delivers all of the capabilities expected of todays’ “open” retirement solutions, but then takes the definition of “openness” a significant step forward. When configured to allow it, plans on the platform can grant varying degrees of access to a universe of investment advisors, and those advisors are free to purchase any non-ERISA-prohibitive investment on behalf of the participant, at any time. When configured most openly, a plan can allow participants to hold their retirement assets with any broker/dealer or trust company in the country of their choosing, with whom VMS has an interface. VMS is now making its next-generation retirement solutions available through its subsidiary, Retirement Revolution LLC, on both a direct basis, as well as through wholesale relationships with the company’s financial service partners.

“The company’s software and data solutions are an essential component in helping its financial services clients run an efficient and scalable accounting back-office,” said Huntington Senior Associate Joel Gragg. “VMS’s tools and technology allow these firms to better streamline their processes, lower costs, increase controls and improve visibility into their trading, reconciliation and mutual fund revenue collection processes, for hundreds-of-billions in mutual fund assets.”

“The team at VMS is leveraging its domain expertise and 20+ years of back-office trust and brokerage accounting experience, to bring a next generation retirement platform to the retirement marketplace,” noted Huntington Partner Tim Bubnack. “Because the technology has been designed and built entirely from the ground up, Retirement Revolution is able to provide a truly unique and open framework for retirement plan sponsors and their participants to receive administrative and advisory services from local and/or national service providers, as well as have access to an exhaustive catalog of investment product suppliers. We are very excited in helping to provide the necessary growth capital to VMS and Retirement Revolution to support the entire team in this initiative.”

To learn more about VMS and Retirement Revolution, please contact Donna Ross by phone at 626.744.2517 or by email at donna.ross@retirementrevolution.com.

Huntington Capital
Based in San Diego, CA, Huntington Capital is a leading mezzanine capital provider to lower middle market companies throughout California and the Southwestern United States. Founded in 2000, Huntington is currently operating out of its second fund, Huntington Capital Fund II, which it raised in 2008 with capital commitments from a group of leading institutional investors. Huntington seeks to invest in established lower middle market businesses generating between $10 million and $75 million in revenues across a broad range of industries; investments are typically structured in the form of growth capital, buyout or acquisition financing ranging between $2.0 million and $7.0 million. The firm has invested in approximately 35 companies since its founding. Partners Morgan Miller, Barry Wilson and Tim Bubnack lead Huntington’s management team. For more information, please visit the company website at www.huntingtoncapital.com.