What is ACAMS?
Wendel Group is acquiring a renowned organization ACAMS. The Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) is an organization that specialized in providing training and certification for AML professionals. It also hosts seminars and conferences as well as provides information to financial institutions on how to detect money laundering and other financial fraud. Most industries consider ACAMS certified professionals to be the gold standard of all Anti Money Laundering specialists.
Charles Intriago, a lawyer, and his wife and Joy founded ACAMs in 2002. It has since grown to become the largest global membership service for aspiring AML professionals. ACAMs has awarded its prestigious CAMs certification to over 50,000 professionals to date. ACAMs is known for its innovative educational model, which promotes continuous learning, even after the certification is obtained. It does this by encouraging its members to participate in webinars, conferences, and other discussions regarding ongoing issues.
The main goals of ACAMs are to help reduce terror funding, financial crime and other anti-social activities through its services. By providing industry-certified training to capable professionals, ACAMs are playing their part in helping eradicate the plague that is money laundering.
Acquisition of ACAMs by Wendel
ACAMs was previously part of the Adtalem Global Education group. Adtalem also manages other private organizations offering higher education such as Walden University and Ross University School of Medicine.
The French Investment group Wendel recently finalized a deal purchasing ACAMS from Adtalem Global Education. The company’s valuation was around $500 million. But Wendel has bought a 98% stake of the company at $338 Million, with 2% going to minority investors. Wendel issued a statement that ACAMS values and purpose deeply resonated with them, hence the motive of purchase.
ACAMs currently has 275 employees working in its US, London, and Hong Kong branches that provide services to its members worldwide. Wendel hopes to grow ACAMs to their maximum growth potential, and do the same for other deserving companies.
Conclusion
The expansion of ACAMs is a boon for governments around the world struggling to deal with internal financial crime. The loss of money from the system as well as the cost of reprimanding the criminals slowly drains the economy. This also leads to massive debt. The costs of creating systems and agendas to combat financial crime are bound to decrease if more people are trained to effectively identify and stave off money laundering.
