Clearwater International advises Sionic on its sale to Davies

Clearwater International has advised Livingbridge and the shareholders of Sionic, the global consulting firm specialising in financial services on its sale to BC Partners-backed, Davies, the specialist professional services and technology business, serving insurance and highly regulated markets.

Sionic is made up of expert-led teams of specialists in banking, asset and investment management, financial markets infrastructure, wealth management, insurance, and reinsurance.

The firm offers multi-disciplinary, multi-capability expertise across six core areas: business strategy, operational excellence and improvement, technology transformation and digitisation, international regulatory compliance, risk, finance and control, leadership, talent, and cultural transformation.

The firm’s 340 strong team operate across: the UK, US, Canada, Switzerland, India and Spain. Sionic will join Davies’ Consulting and Technology practice headed by CEO Mark Grocott. Sionic CEO, Craig Sher, will continue to lead the day-to-day operations and will join Davies’ Executive Leadership Team, with the wider team continuing in their roles within Davies.

In recent years Davies has diversified and deepened its Consulting and Technology capability to provide customer experience, resourcing and learning solutions, as well as data and speech analytics, robotic process automation, legacy platform modernisation and product development for its 1,000+ insurance and highly regulated clients.

Globally Davies’ 5,000+ colleagues operate across Bermuda, Canada, Ireland, the UK and US. The business delivers professional services and technology solutions across the risk and insurance value chain, including excellence in claims, underwriting, distribution, regulation, customer experience, human capital, digital transformation and change management.

The Clearwater International team consisted of Partners Richard Goldsack and Wesley Fell-Smith, Director Jonathan Grant, Associate Director Kirsten Handley, Associate James Walker and Executive Joshua Gorman.

Dan Saulter, Group CEO of Davies commented: “I’m delighted to welcome Craig and the wider team to Davies. Sionic’s highly experienced consultants and technology experts are trusted by some of the world’s largest financial institutions and, like us, have been on a journey to expand internationally and invest in innovation for its highly regulated clients. The insurance market continues to undergo significant transformation, with businesses seeking to harness the power of automation and digital capabilities to create competitive edge, to streamline their delivery and service, and to manage operating costs. Diversifying our solutions and expanding our operations globally is an important plank to our growth strategy. Through the addition of Sionic we can become more valuable to our 1,000+ global insurance and highly regulated clients.”

Craig Sher, CEO of Sionic added: “The Clearwater International team have worked diligently with us to complete this transaction. The team had a thorough understanding of the international consultancy market and were able to provide us with sound advice throughout the process. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Clearwater and have found their expertise and professionalism very impressive. We felt guided every step of the way.”