About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Orc Sets Out Technology Integration Plans After Taking Ownership of Tbricks

Subscribe to our newsletter

Orc plans to integrate Tbricks’ technology, customers and employees into its derivatives trading technology business following an agreement by its owner Cidron Delfi Intressenter Holding, a company controlled by Nordic Capital, to acquire 100% of the shares in Tbricks. No financial details of the deal were disclosed, but it includes the transfer of ownership of Tbricks to Orc and is expected to close on January 15, 2015.

Orc, under the auspices of its private equity owner, had been looking for opportunities to acquire for three years, but found no good matches before starting to talk to Tbricks last year. Tbricks was co-founded in 2006 by Jonas Hansbo, CEO, and Joakim Hassila, chief technology officer, both of whom were former Orc executives. The company provides next-generation trading technology including a fast core platform and trading apps to market makers, proprietary traders and banks.

Torben Munch, CEO of Orc Group, says: “I anticipate the acquisition will significantly strengthen Orc’s offering in the trading domain. Jonas Hansbo and his team have conceptualised and launched a strong, flexible trading platform designed for the requirements of tomorrow. The Tbricks team constitutes some of the most skilled, passionate and experienced technologists in trading and the addition of them to our team will greatly enhance our competitiveness.”

Hansbo adds: “This is good news for Tbricks. It gives us the opportunity to take what we have done to a much larger audience. With the merger, the advanced software from Tbricks will be married with Orc’s strong ownership and global distribution capacity to create another breakthrough, leapfrogging existing platforms. We remain committed to our clients and are confident the combination will benefit them greatly.”

Munch describes Tbricks’ trading technology architecture as ‘very appealing’ and says Orc plans to integrate the Tbricks platform with the Orc Trader and Orc Liquidator platforms over the next few months. The aim is to deliver one software stack for all clients. Support will continue to be provided for the Orc platforms, although Orc trading customers are expected to welcome the opportunity to migrate to the more modern Tbricks platform. Tbricks customers will remain on the platform and will gain opportunities presented by Orc’s functionality including execution and direct market access to over 150 global trading venues.

Munch comments: “This is a good acquisition, we can deliver more to all our clients. The acquisition also provides the capacity to extend beyond derivatives trading and into other asset classes such as cash equities and foreign exchange instruments further down the line.”

The acquisition adds 40 Tbricks clients in Europe and North America to Orc’s roster of 170 clients worldwide. It also adds all 70 Tbricks staff, including Hansbo and a software development team in St Petersburg, Russia, to Orc’s headcount of 220 employees. The management structure of the enlarged company will be detailed later this week, but it is expected that Hansbo will have a central role with responsibility for all of Orc’s products. A dispute some years ago between Orc and Hansbo over the setting up of Tbricks was settled before Nordic Capital acquired Orc in January 2012 and will have no effect on the acquisition and integration of Tbricks.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Upcoming Webinar: Trade the Middle East & North Africa: Connectivity, Data Systems & Processes

Date: 6 November 2024 Time: 11am London / 1pm Egypt  / 2pm Saudi Arabia / 3pm United Arab Emirates / 12pm CET Duration: 50 minutes In Partnership With As key states across the region seek alternatives to the fossil fuel industries that have driven their economies for decades, pioneering financial centres are emerging in Egypt,...

BLOG

QuantHouse Partners with QUOD to Enhance AI-Driven Trading Algorithms & TCA

Iress’s QuantHouse division has formed a strategic global partnership with multi-asset trading technology provider QUOD Financial. Under the agreement, QuantHouse will supply low-latency and historical market data to QUOD, which will be utilised for back-testing and optimisation of QUOD’s AI-driven trading algorithms, and to facilitate real-time, highly accurate transaction cost analysis (TCA) at the point...

EVENT

Future of Capital Markets Tech Summit: Buy AND Build, London

Buy AND Build: The Future of Capital Markets Technology London on September 19th at Marriott Hotel Canary Wharf London examines the latest changes and innovations in trading technology and explores how technology is being deployed to create an edge in sell side and buy side capital markets financial institutions.

GUIDE

Institutional Digital Assets Handbook 2024

Despite the setback of the FTX collapse, institutional interest in digital assets has grown markedly in the past 12 months, with firms of all sizes now acknowledging participation in some form. While as recently as a year ago, institutional trading firms were taking a cautious stance toward their use, the acceptance of tokenisation, stablecoins, and...