Inflexion selling Chambers and Partners for over £400m

UK private equity firm Inflexion is selling off Chambers and Partners five years after it acquired it, in a deal valued at more than £400m.

According to the Financial Times, the business is being sold to US investment group Abry Partners.

Inflexion bought the legal ranking and insights business in March 2018, in what City A.M. understood at the time to be between £35m and £50m. Chambers and Partners ranks over 80,000 lawyers and law firms by practice area in almost 200 jurisdictions since 1990.

Mark Wyatt came in as CEO of the company after it was acquired in 2018, but stepped down a little over a year later and was replaced by Tim Noble. Inflexion planned to help the business launch new products and strengthen Chambers and Partners’ digital offerings.

Inflexion has been ramping up activity in the legal space as recently it revealed that it was buying the majority of magic circle firm Allen & Overy’s legal risk management business. Inflexion made “a strategic investment” via its Partnership Capital II fund alongside Endicott Capital, a US-based investor.

Speaking in a statement on that deal, David Whileman, partner and head of partnership capital at Inflexion, said: “The sector is one we’ve tracked for some time as heightened regulatory scrutiny and complexity have led to growing demand for efficiency and thus outsourcing in legal spend.”

Inflexion has been contacted for comment.