Royalblue has clinched a $24 million deal with Merrill Lynch for the use of the fidessa product suite in the investment bank's core US domestic trading operations.
Merrill Lynch already uses the fidessa product suite for trading equities in Europe, Asia and the US and the deal provides support for market making in Nasdaq listed securities. Under the agreement Merrill will also extend its commitment to the existing fidessa platform for a further three years. The new deal is expected to be worth at least $24m over the next three years, of which $9.5m reflects the investment in the new US domestic system.
The UK supplier says the deal represents the culmination of discussions started in 2001 when royalblue granted Merrill share options in the company conditional upon an agreement being concluded for the use of fidessa in the bank's US operations.
These options have lapsed, but due to the continued strategic importance of the deal the vendor has granted Merrill Lynch three-year options exercisable immediately with an exercise price of 550p for 600,000 ordinary shares.
Royalblue shares are currently trading at a year high of 497.5 pence, 25 pence up on yesterday's overnight close.