One of the leading providers of software and consulting services in the financial industry, London listed First Derivatives (LON: FDP), has unveiled a follow up to its majority stake Acquisition of KX Systems in October 2014. The company has purchased the entire issued share capital of QuantumKDB for a total consideration of up to £2.2 million.
The deal aims to secure the position of the company in the provision of complementary services to its majority owned KX Systems business. The database software kdb+, which is developed by KX Systems, is a high-performance column-store database, which has anticipated the growing amounts of data which financial institutions would need to crunch.
The software solution has a built-in expressive query and programming language named q. It is used as a central repository to store time-series data within any type of enterprise and supports real-time analysis of billions of records.
According to the acquisition announcement made by First Derivatives, the complementary consultancy expertise which is being acquired is going to boost the growth of the Kx Systems business. The acquisition is projected to enhance earnings in the first full year following the deal.
The Chief Executive Officer of Quantum, Kieran Lucid, commented on the announcement: "As the home of KX technology, FD is a natural fit for us. We are joining at a time of rapid expansion in the Kx client base across industry sectors, as more and more clients appreciate the benefits of this technology that has dominated capital markets for more than 10 years."
The CEO of First Derivatives, Brian Conlon, explained: "We are experiencing increasing demand for KX skills from existing and potential customers and the acquisition of Quantum will add to our existing capabilities and support our growth plans."
The share price of First Derivatives has increased by almost 20 per cent throughout the past year to trade around 1500 pence, nearing the all time high set in January 2014 at 1583 pence per share.
