The Keystone story

About the foundation and development of Keystone

Keystone Advisers was founded in February 2000 by five friends who jointly decided to leave their jobs at international investment banks and management consulting firms to move back to Sweden and start a corporate finance firm. The five founding partners were friends from university and had remained in close contact during their first professional years. The founding idea of Keystone Advisers was to offer high-quality transaction advice to small- and medium-sized companies and its owners with regards to acquisitions, divestitures, investments and financing based on the partners’ combined experiences from larger, global companies as well as from entrepreneur-driven companies. The firm has since remained independent and self-funded being owned by the founding, active partners.

Initially, Keystone Advisers primarily worked on expansion financing projects in the earlier stages of company development relevant for venture capital firms. By 2002, the service offering was broadened to M&A transactions as the first larger sell-side mandates were finalised. In the same year, the firm also expanded into private equity fund-related transactions.

Since 2002, Keystone Advisers primary service offering has been in order of significance: M&A mandates, fund-related transactions and expansion financing projects. Occasionally, the firm also works on transaction-related assignments such as strategic advice and financial analysis.

Keystone Advisers started to expand its organisation in 2004 with the first recruitments directly from leading business and engineering schools. Since then, a strong team has been formed and the firm has steadily grown to more than twenty employees with a high retention level. The firm is very proud of its small group of alumni and keeps close contact with these friends who are now working at leading private equity firms and investment banks.

Another dimension of the firm’s development was started in 2006 with the establishment of an office in Tallinn, Estonia, in cooperation with two local business men as partners. The expansion has continued with the opening of an office in Riga, Latvia, in 2007 and establishment of representation in Kiev, Ukraine, in 2008.

To date, Keystone Advisers has finalised more than 90 transactions and related mandates. The firm’s client base is primarily domestic for each office and the majority of mandates are international in terms of scope of business operations, potential buyers, targets or investors.

Going forward, Keystone Advisers will continue to focus on its core service offering of providing high-quality transaction advice to small- and medium-sized companies and its owners. The firm’s team and geographic presence will be strengthened and, if possible, also expanded to new offices. Keystone Advisers will continue to work with its current client base and expand to new assignments based on its strong track-record.

© Keystone Advisers