Business

Financial software firm celebrates 'transformational' acquisition deal

FINANCIAL software firm First Derivatives has paid £36 million (€45m) to acquire a further 46.5 per cent stake in US-based Kx Systems in a deal it describes as "transformational".

It means the Newry based firm now owns 65 per cent of Kx.

California-based Kx, which reported a pre-tax profit of $8.8m on revenues of $13.6m last year, is a big data vendor and lists nine of the top 10 global investment banks as customers.

The deal allows the group to offer customers the alternative of either building big fast data solutions using kdb and First Derivatives' consulting talent or buying applications using Delta, which is powered by kdb .

It also provides First Derivatives with "a clear path" to expand beyond capital markets, the company said.

To support the deal, First Derivatives has agreed a new five year loan of £24m with Bank of Ireland in addition to its other banking arrangements.

Janet Lustgarten, CEO and co-founder of Kx Systems, said: "We have been successfully focused on Wall Street for 20 years because of the large data sets they have. "Now because the Internet of Things is generating large data sets in other industries we need to grow to be able to address these new opportunities.

First Derivatives, with its deep pool of engineering talent and its global footprint is the ideal partner to help accelerate our growth, scale the company and to bring kdb to a wider audience."

Brian Conlon, chief executive officer of First Derivatives added: "We intend to make significant investments in Kx to allow the founders and their team to scale the company whilst staying true to its heritage. Transformational is a term often overused in the technology industry, but in this case I can confidently use it to describe the impact this transaction will have on our collective prospects."