Deloitte Consulting buys asset management consultancy Casey Quirk
Deloitte has acquired Connecticut-based Casey Quirk, a management consultancy specialised in the asset management industry. The Casey Quirk partners and team will transition to Deloitte Consulting and will operate under the ‘Casey Quirk by Deloitte’ brand.
Founded by consulting veteran John Casey* and Kevin Quirk, Casey Quirk today serves a majority of the world’s 50 largest asset managers – according to the firm’s website, its client roster includes 70% of the world’s 25 largest asset managers. Over the past period the firm has seen strong growth: the Connecticut headquartered consultancy more than doubled its staff to around 50 in the space of three years and opened further offices in Hong Kong and New York.
“Joining Deloitte is an optimal choice to help us maintain our tremendous growth,” comments Yariv Itah, Managing Partner of Casey Quirk. “We also believe this creates a superior career platform for our talented team.”
The joining of forces with Deloitte Consulting – with more than 23,000 professionals globally the world’s largest management consulting firm according to ALM Intelligence – will allow both firms to better address “evolving and complex challenges including globalisation, innovation, competition, and, most importantly, shifts in investor requirements,” states Joe Guastella, US Financial Services Consulting leader at Deloitte Consulting.
According to a recent study by Willis Towers Watson, the globe’s 500 largest asset managers have around $78 trillion of assets under management, but, across the landscape, several trends are making a growing impact. Among the developments highlighted are challenges such as fee pressure, industry consolidation, technology disruption and increased regulation. Another major development is the rise of alternative assets, which is eating a growing share of the market, and is forecasted to reach $15.3 trillion by 2020, found PwC in another report.
Building on the expertise of both parties, Guastella says that Casey Quirk by Deloitte will be to help asset management organisations navigate through the choppy waters, providing them with an “end-to-end suite of consulting services”, from strategy through operational execution. “This combination provides an unparalleled value proposition to the marketplace,” adds Quirk.
The combined entity will compete with similar practices of the other Big Four, specialised players such as Alpha FMC, and the asset management advisory units of investment firms and banks, among others.
String of acquisitions
The pickup of Casey Quirk is the latest in a string of strategic acquisitions Deloitte Consulting has made in recent years. This year the business advisory bought French IT consultancy Cleversys, while last year the Big Four closed more than ten consulting deals, including Kaisen Consulting (UK and US), life science compliance firm CIS (US), LRA Worldwide (US), as well as FCTB and Indicia Talent & Performance (both in the Netherlands). A few years back, early 2013, Deloitte Consulting closed one of the largest acquisitions in the history of its Consulting business, when it purchased Monitor, a strategy consultancy with at the time around 1,200 consultants (today ‘Monitor Deloitte’).
* Over the course of more than four decades in asset management John Casey founded consulting firms such as Rogers, Casey & Associates and Barra Strategic Consulting Group (the predecessor to Casey Quirk). In August 2015 he transitioned to the role of senior advisor and passed on the chairmanship of Casey Quirk to co-founder Kevin Quirk.
