SunGard Market Data Services has signed a definitive agreement to acquire New York-headquartered Fame Information Services, in a determined effort to break into the market for reference data management and historical pricing.
The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2004. Fame's majority shareholder is private equity outfit Warburg Pincus. Financial details have not been disclosed.
Fame's clients include top-tier institutions in the areas of investment banking and asset management, public-sector banks and energy trading firms in more than 40 countries. Under the agreement, the Fame product suite and management team will join the SunGard Market Data Services group. The SunGard unit was itself created from the acqusition of the former ADP quote terminal business of Bridge Information Systems.
The acquisition gives SunGard a ready-made reference data engine in Fame's ReferencePoint solution, a welcome source of recent license deals at Belgium's KBC Bank and TIAA-CREF in the US.
John Hyde, group chief executive officer for SunGard Market Data Services, says the provision of reference data and historical pricing feeds is a logical extension of the firm's product portfolio.
"SunGard's interconnected network of investment, portfolio and asset management, brokerage and trading systems, consumes an extensive array of historical and reference data," he says. "With Fame's products and solutions added to our offerings, particularly its leading-edge ReferencePoint solution, we will be able to increase our value-add and help our customers reduce costs and improve operational efficiency."
Not included in the acquisition is Fame's education division, which provides training programs to the energy industry.