Citizens Advises Candid Partners on its Sale to McKinsey & Company

Citizens M&A Advisory announced today that it served as the exclusive financial advisor to Candid Partners, a leading tech-enabled, multi-cloud consulting firm, on its sale to McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.

Founded in 2013 in Atlanta, Candid is the largest independent dedicated cloud consulting firm in the United States. The company has deep, technical expertise across Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Candid delivers cloud strategy, enterprise cloud migration, cloud native architecture and DevOps-as-a-Service solutions to Fortune 500 companies and large enterprises. To help its clients securely migrate to the cloud, Candid developed MatterTM, a proprietary and sophisticated automation software program. Matter enables the cloud migration journey from planning and analysis to deployment and compliance once the applications are cloud enabled.

McKinsey is the trusted advisor to the world's leading businesses, governments and institutions. The firm's cloud offerings aim to modernize organizations' application hosting, network and end-user environments to increase agility, productivity and efficiency while reducing risk. The acquisition of Candid will further enhance McKinsey's growing offering of cloud knowledge, assets and people. More information about McKinsey's cloud offerings is available here.

Merrick Olives and John Peak, co-founders and managing partners of Candid, said: "Selecting an investment banker is a difficult process. We were inundated by inquiries to the point where they were becoming a distraction. After getting to know Don and his team, we found the right bankers for us. The Citizens team not only had the requisite knowledge of our market segment but also a straightforwardness and candor that was a perfect fit for our culture. Don ran a disciplined, highly effective process from first meeting through close. The team's efforts yielded a terrific outcome with an ideal partner for our business. We couldn't be more pleased with the result."

Don Holbrook, managing director at Citizens, said: "Candid Partners is a one-of-a-kind combination of enterprise-grade consulting expertise and deep, downstack technical cloud skills. Its Matter software is a unique solution for clients looking for an automated and secure cloud migration journey. Candid's capabilities are a natural addition to McKinsey's world-class consulting services."

Citizens M&A Advisory specializes in middle-market mergers and acquisitions as well as later-stage financing transactions. Citizens combines sector intelligence with a client-focused approach to realize our clients' true value. The Citizens team has closed more than 150 transactions in the last five years and has more than 60 M&A professionals specializing in a range of industries across the United States. Citizens M&A Advisory is part of Citizens Capital Markets, Inc., a subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG).

 About Citizens Financial Group, Inc.

Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is one of the nation's oldest and largest financial institutions, with $183.3 billion in assets as of December 31, 2020. Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Citizens offers a broad range of retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations and institutions. Citizens helps its customers reach their potential by listening to them and by understanding their needs in order to offer tailored advice, ideas and solutions. In Consumer Banking, Citizens provides an integrated experience that includes mobile and online banking, a 24/7 customer contact center and the convenience of approximately 2,700 ATMs and approximately 1,000 branches in 11 states in the New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions. Consumer Banking products and services include a full range of banking, lending, savings, wealth management and small business offerings. In Commercial Banking, Citizens offers a broad complement of financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as loan syndication, corporate finance, merger and acquisition, and debt and equity capital markets capabilities. More information is available at www.citizensbank.com or visit us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.