Currently ranked: 2
Previously ranked: 1
What makes for a banner year? In 2016, Jonathan Korngold, who oversees the global financial services and fintech investments that account for about a third of growth equity firm General Atlantic’s total portfolio, was celebrating $1 billion in new and add-on financings over a 12-month period. Korngold says that 2017 may top 2016, but for reasons other than just capital deployment. According to Korngold, it has been a “productive year” for new investments, among them Mexico-based mobile payments processing firm Clip, German auto insurance service provider ControlExpert, and Karvy Computershare, a shareholder and asset management services firm in India. But 2017’s “overall strong performance” was well rounded, explains Korngold. He cites the “very balanced contribution across all of our regions, the strong diversification of our new investments across the many fintech subsectors, the meaningful value creation that we helped to generate within our existing portfolio, and the many significant exits that we helped to catalyze.”
He is referring to a pipeline of “cumulative proceeds in the billions of dollars” from such transactions as Visa’s investment in Swedish payments company Klarna, which General Atlantic financed in 2011; Banco Santander taking Santander Asset Management — a joint venture of which Korngold is a board member — back in-house; and the pending sale of investment management technology company Allfunds Bank to Hellman & Friedman and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC. And that’s not to mention “excellent momentum” among active portfolio companies, including payments firm Adyen, market data provider Argus Media, online lending company Avant, and India’s IIFL Wealth Management.
A managing director who has been General Atlantic’s New York–based head of financial services since 2012 and led the firm’s health care sector for more than seven years before that, Korngold contends that his firm is unmatched in its global reach and ability to be “a truly differentiated, value-added partner to entrepreneurs” over multiyear time horizons.