Abandoned Property Advisors Acquires Keane’s Lost Shareholder Search Business
In December 2020 Abandoned Property Advisors, LLC announced its acquisition of Keane Unclaimed Property’s lost shareholder search business, a transaction which had been percolating for months. Previously, in July 2020, Keane sold its abandoned property consulting services and escheat reporting technology to Sovos Compliance, LLC (a global tax software provider). Keane’s remaining abandoned property location and associated compliance functionality was, not surprisingly, up for grabs too. This is the area of most pressing, “rubber meets the road” concern for corporations with shareholders who can get “lost,” and Keane was by far the largest U.S. player in this space. As a result of the December deal, now the largest player and new household name is Abandoned Property Advisors (APA).
Keane had become so prominent in this area because it acquired Unclaimed Property Recovery and Reporting LLC (UPRR) in 2014, owned and run by industry guru Bob Irvine. He is married to an equally talented abandoned property guru, Carol Irvine, who was and still is APA’s CEO. So, essentially, this highly regarded couple has recovered Bob’s UPRR assets and Keane’s state-of-the-art search systems, positioning APA to be even more focused and effective.
As stated by Carol, “APA’s unique capabilities to locate, protect and preserve relationships with investors and customers have stood the test of time. Together we look forward to continuing our decades-long commitment to providing the highest quality abandoned property location and compliance services.” And Bob added “This acquisition provides APA with unprecedented cutting-edge technology and extraordinary operational processing capabilities.” He also underscored the substantial risk and liability-reducing benefits of the new company. It should be noted lastly that while unclaimed stock and cash will be a big part of their business, and of particular interest to our readers, they will also serve huge constituencies in the mutual fund, bank, brokerage and insurance industries as well – plus others – in the U.S. as well as Canada.
We wish APA all the best.