European treasury management firm Trema has acquired the assets of ailing Canadian cash management outfit Alterna Technologies as part of an ongoing effort to break into the North American market.
Alterna, which provides liquidity management software to large corporations, is understood to have run out of cash late last year when venture capitalists pulled the plug on further funding. Market sources suggest Trema stepped in in December - paying $500,000 for an option to buy the firm for $3 million.
Trema will not comment on the specifics of the deal, but says that it acquired IP rights to Alterna's J2EE-based liquidity management software for a mixture of cash and stocks. Thomas Bergqvist, Trema's head of UK and Nordic regions says new agreements were signed with approximately 28 Alterna staff and leases and client contracts for ten customer installations were also transferred to Trema.
The company says it will use Alterna's Auros technology as an integrated cash management, payment factory and inhouse banking module within the Trema product suite. The repackaged software is expected to be available from Q2 2004.