Confluence Technologies, a US-based provider of automation software for investment managers, has bought StatPro, a cloud-based UK firm that offers portfolio analytics through its SaaS-delivered tools, for £161.1 million (more than $207 million) in cash. As a result, the London Stock Exchange-listed StatPro will go private.
The combined businesses are looking to marry StatPro’s presence in the front and middle offices to Confluence’s value in the back office to create an end-to-end solution for asset managers and fund administrators, Mark Evans, founder and CEO of Confluence, tells WatersTechnology.
“When you look at our regulatory platform, and you look at StatPro’s ability to measure and present risk, those two things are meat and potatoes. …The closer your systems are tied together—such that the risk numbers that live in a regulatory presentation are provably correct and provably tied together—is really exciting to us,” he says. ”But I think it’s much larger than that. …I look at [StatPro] more as an intellectual asset than specifically a product asset. I think that as an intellectual asset, they have taken a view that is absolutely consistent with our view that decisions are made and data is consumed, it’s churned into some decision-making processes, things come out of that, and then instead of it disappearing, it should continue to move down the line. They’re actually a powerful offering for the middle office.”
[Editor’s note: This is a developing story and WatersTechnology will write more extensively about what this means for clients of the companies in a later article.]
The buy side is facing a host of challenges—increasing cost pressures, tightening margins, competing with passive strategies, and headcount reductions, to name a few. Evans says that this deal is “the exact thesis” for alleviating those pain points.
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