Leading financial software consulting business, Newry based First Derivates have acquired fellow software business Activate Clients in a £3.4m deal. “Activate Client is a low risk, earning enhancing acquisition for the company that will deliver synergies on a number of levels,” said CEO of First Derivatives and Newry man Michael Conlon. Activate Clients can provide additional technology capability with its staff processing a complex range of skills that can be useful to First Derivatives as a whole. Mr Conlon welcomes its former staff to the company. Pat Brazel current CEO of Activate Clients and a non executive of First Derivates has now been appointed Global Heads of Sales for First Derivates and will subsequently step down from the board of the company. October last year saw First Derivatives pay £36m for a majority stake in the United States based software company Kx Systems with the acquisition of Activate Clients being the first since then. Kx Systems makes a high performance databases using a technology called kdb+. First Derivatives had worked broadly with the company and already had a 20 per cent stake in the Californian business. When talking of the deal Mr Conlon commented it was “transformational” to First Derivatives.”
Newry Democrat
31st March 2015
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