Member Article

Irish software firm buys trio of London businesses

Irish software firm First Derivatives have bought three London-based businesses for a total of £3.15m.

The company have bought Redshift Horizons Ltd, suppliers to real-time electronic trading systems; Cowrie Financial Ltd, a provider of application and consulting services; and Redshift Horizons LLP, an investment management partnership.

£2.05m will be paid on completion of the acquisitions, £0.45m in loan notes, and £0.65m of deferred consideration.

Redshift, Cowrie and Redshift Horizons LLP are owned by founders Tom Kozlowski and Anjum Waheed and others. Following the acquisitions Tom Kozlowski, and Anjum Waheed will remain with the Company in senior executive roles.

The acquisitions will expand First Derivatives’ expertise in managed services for data and trading systems, and specialist Murex software that is widely used within the capital markets industry across asset classes for trading, risk management and processing.

Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of First Derivatives, commented, “In line with our strategy, the acquisitions of Redshift and Cowrie will further enhance the capabilities and scope of our Delta software suite, while further enhancing our vendor services practice.

“Both companies have successful track records of developing profitable results and excellent service delivery and we believe the expertise of the Redshift and Cowrie teams will prove highly complementary to our workforce of world-class technology professionals.”

Tom Kozlowski, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Cowrie Financial Ltd, commented, “We are excited about the opportunities that this transaction provides for both Redshift and Cowrie.

“It gives us additional channels to market our services and allows us to accelerate our plans by leveraging First Derivatives’ global presence and expertise in trading and managed service solutions. We look forward to bringing our experience and know how, allowing us to build on First Derivatives’ success to-date.

“We believe that our joint capability in application services and managed services will further address demand in the market today. Capability through deep subject matter expertise, capacity through cost effective teams and focused managed services, this is what our clients are asking for in today’s tough market. Jointly we will have the ability to deliver against this.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .