Insurtech company, Lumera, has entered an agreement to acquire independent provider of data management and technology solutions, ITM, as it looks to expand into the UK market.

Described as a “major step” in Lumera’s international growth strategy, and its largest acquisition to date, the deal is expected to help add "significant" presence and capabilities to accelerate growth in the UK policy administration systems (PAS) market.

It also supports Lumera’s objectives for entering new markets, while bringing additions to its offering, including tech-enabled specialist services for data analysis, regulatory compliance assessments, de-risking and liability management, data quality management, data cleansing and tracing.

Commenting on the deal, Lumera CEO, Jonas Alfredson, said: “This is a union of two successful businesses with much in common, and above all, a joint vision for digitalizing the life and pensions industry which we serve.

“With their combination of industry and tech expertise covering life and pensions, data management and dashboards, ITM is a trusted partner to leaders in the UK life and pensions space, resembling our status in the Nordic markets.

“I’m also confident that our teams are complementary and highly compatible in terms of skills, spirit and culture.”

Speaking to Pensions Age, ITM CEO, Mark Lecompte said that the acquisition was not only the “perfect fit”, but also “perfect timing”, particularly with the launch of pension dashboards on the horizon.

He stated: “We had a tough couple of years during the Covid period, but the past 18-24 months has seen some really good strengthening of our service and solution offerings and growth in the market.

“And we felt that the next five years within the UK market is going to be transformational, not just because of dashboard, but because of what dashboard is going to do in terms of making the market that much more transparent.

“With that, I firmly believe we are going to see even greater demand, so we really needed to have that technology robustness and scalability at our disposal to support our clients.

“We’ve been talking to Lumera for nearly a year now, and it felt like perfect timing given what we can both see is coming down the line over the next three to five years. Having a company like Lumera with the technology strength that they bring, and also their experience of pensions dashboards, it was just the perfect timing.”

Indeed, also speaking to Pensions Age, Lumera COO, Magnus Gammelgård, pointed out that dashboards have been in the Nordics for close to 20 years, arguing that “dashboards are going to be a game changer for the UK market, and we are super excited about that”.

“It's going to be one of those events that trigger things in the market and ITM is going to be very well positioned to take advantage of that,” he continued.

ITM’s expertise is also expected to help Lumera extend its reach in the UK market, and Gammelgård said that Lumera is “super excited”, with the acquisition expected to bring something “new and fresh to the market”, given the combination of ITM’s position and skill set, and Lumera’s technology and experience in the Nordics to the UK.

“We're super excited going forward with this…” he added, continuing: “We did thorough research, as after we entered the UK market in 2022 we realised we needed more people that are active in the UK market and with our target customers.”

Having narrowed the search down to ITM based on their customer base, skills and experience, Gammelgård said the group’s pension consulting offering was an additional positive consideration.

“They bring something to the table which we haven't had in our offerings before, which is the expert pensions consultant and data quality aspect,” he explained.

“That will be a good addition to our offerings and we can also look to bring that to other markets, not only the UK markets, but also the Netherlands and broader Nordics market as well.”

This is expected to be a two-way street, as Lecompte said that one of the key tenants that underpinned the acquisition was the opportunities it could provide in terms of exporting some of ITM’s service offerings and expertise into the markets that Lumera is operating in.

“Not least in Holland, which is facing many similar challenges as you know to the UK, but also into Sweden and Norway as well,” he said.

“So that's absolutely one of the areas that we're really excited about …just as much as bringing Lumera into the UK and introducing them to our clients.”

Following the transaction, ITM will be a fully integrated Lumera company, with its team of over 160 professionals set to join Lumera. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Speaking to Pensions Age however, Lecompte confirmed that whilst ITM will continue to operate “exactly as it does now” and retain its heritage following the deal, there will be a rebranding at some point in the future, likely in the next three-six months.

“But that's something we're going to work through from both sides over the coming months,” he added.

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