Acquisition of South Dakota Trust Company Establishes JTC as the Leading Independent Provider of Administration Services to the US Personal Trust Sector

JTC, the global provider of fund, corporate and private client services, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire TC3 Group Holdings LLC trading as South Dakota Trust Company (“SDTC”), the leading independent provider of administration services to the US personal trust sector, for a maximum consideration of $270 million (the “Acquisition”).

JTC’s acquisition of South Dakota Trust Company

The acquisition of SDTC establishes JTC as the leading independent provider of administration services to the US personal trust sector. The circa $1.2 trillion Assets under Administration (“AuA”) US personal trust market is highly attractive with strong structural growth drivers.

SDTC provides access to over 1,700 high net worth and ultra-high net worth family clients, including more than 100 billionaires and 350 centimillionaires, based on a large intermediary network, which delivers predictable revenues. With increased scale and JTC’s additional service offering, such as its Private Office, which provides corporate, accounting, regulatory reporting and family governance services, the acquisition will provide opportunities to increase share of wallet in the wider private client services market in the US.

The acquisition significantly strengthens JTC’s US platform and builds on JTC’s track record of acquisitions in the US. The Group’s complementary US Private Client Services operations, which were established in 2013, already include a material presence in South Dakota and were further strengthened with the acquisition in 2022 of New York Private Trust Company, a Delaware-chartered non-deposit trust company.

Post completion of the Acquisition, JTC will have a total of 15 US offices, including both Private Client Services and Institutional Client Services, spanning the East to the West coast, with over 300 employees, enabling JTC to further develop and expand its personal trust services offering in a large and growing market.

Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of JTC, said:

“SDTC is a great addition to the JTC Group. It is a market-leader in the fast-growing personal trust market in the US, which in turn is the largest in the world. It has a highly committed service-focused team with deep client relationships, an outstanding track record of profitability and growth, and is hugely complementary to our existing US operations, particularly our existing South Dakota business and building on our acquisition of NYPTC last year. Not only does it bring us greater scale in the US, it also provides significant opportunities to offer our wider private client services to their high net worth and ultra-high net worth family clients. The acquisition also very much delivers on our previously announced strategy to grow a market leading US personal trust business. We are delighted to welcome SDTC’s valued colleagues, clients and partners and very much look forward to the significant opportunities ahead of us in this exciting growth market”.

Al W. King III, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of SDTC, said:

“We are delighted to join JTC. We have an enormous amount in common including our commitment to our clients, our culture and our professional expertise. We know the JTC team well having worked with them for over seven years, and see significant opportunities to expand our combined offering to clients and their advisors, so that we can meet more of their needs in this fast growing private client market”.

Pierce H. McDowell III, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of SDTC, said:

“Combining SDTC, the leading and fastest-growing independent trust administration business in the US, with JTC, a highly successful global group, with a fast developing US business, provides enormous opportunities for the benefit of our valued clients, employees and partners. As a team of over 100 people, including over 60 dedicated trust officers, we very much look forward to joining our colleagues at JTC and realizing the many opportunities that lie ahead”.