Kroll’s K2 to Buy Advisory Firm Led by U.S. Anti-Terror Sleuth

(Bloomberg) -- K2 Intelligence, the corporate investigative firm co-founded by Jules Kroll, is acquiring the Financial Integrity Network, an advisory firm led by Juan Zarate, the former Treasury Department official who led U.S. efforts to halt terrorism financing following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The acquisition, which is expected to be completed and announced on Monday, gives K2 new expertise in banking and regulatory issues. The firm has already established itself in the U.S. and Europe as a player in corporate investigations, asset recovery and compliance. Terms of the deal, involving two private companies, weren’t disclosed.

“This is a truly strategic combination,” said Kroll, who started the modern corporate investigations industry with his eponymous firm, Kroll Associates, in 1972. “Our international investigations business and their talent and relationships at financial centers are complementary.”

Zarate, who served in the President George W. Bush’s administration, launched the Financial Integrity Network in 2014 with Chip Poncy, a former Treasury official who also led efforts to combat terrorist financing during the Bush administration. A third Treasury official from that counter-terrorism effort, Daniel Glaser, joined the firm in 2017.

“This is a hugely important strategic merger,” Zarate said. “This space is getting more competitive and more intense. We’re at an inflection point in terms of how we think about economic security. In order to impact and shape policy, FIN needed to get bigger and better.”

Jules Kroll’s original firm, which professionalized the practice of background checks, became widely known for its work tracking down assets stolen by kleptocrats including Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti. The firm was eventually listed on the Nasdaq and acquired by Marsh & McLennan in 2004. Jules and his son Jeremy left in 2008 and launched K2 Intelligence in 2009.

K2 Intelligence, based in New York, employs more than 300 people. With the addition of the Financial Integrity Network’s full-time employees and plans to hire more staff, the new entity will have about 350 people next year, according to the company. The Financial Integrity Network is based in Washington.

“Today’s C-level decision-maker has complex problems, and she’s going to a range of advisers,” said Jeremy Kroll, who heads K2 Intelligence as the chief executive officer. “We’re purpose-built across the range of disciplines to address risk issues holistically, from one place.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Farrell in New York at gregfarrell@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, David S. Joachim

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