Anyone who’s ever met Rob Flatley will attest to the fact that he was born to sell CoreOne Technologies, and probably to Markit. And so it transpires that Markit has bought yet again in the enterprise data space, this time parting company with $200 million for CoreOne and its One-suffixed affiliates in the Symphony Group, to sit alongside its other acquisitions in the space: Cadis Software (now Markit EDM), Information Mosaic and thinkFolio.
We first met Flatley before he got involved in the enterprise data business. At our meeting – at his New York offices at Banc of America Securities, ostensibly to collect data for our Algorithmic Trading HandBook – Rob managed to simultaneously hold a conversation about BofA’s flavour of VWAP and make several trades on his portfolio. It was an impressive feat.
Before he joined the algo world, he was head of Macgregor, a pioneer in the order management system (OMS) space. These experiences – and a stint running Autobahn at Deutsche Bank – appear to have rubbed off on the CoreOne suite, particularly with PrimeOne, which serves the prime brokerage space and helps traverse the breach between the front office and the enterprise data it relies on; certainly, there is potential synergy with the thinkFolio portfolio management offering, acquired by Markit in early 2014.
Back in 2010, Flatley was brought into a data management and performance measurement supplier named Netik, and tasked with reinvigorating what had become something of a stale offering in an increasingly competitive environment. Flatley went further than that, though. He reinvented Netik as CoreOne Technologies and its series of affiliates, creating a group of business applications underpinned by the same data management platform.
For Markit, the acquisition seems to be aimed at strengthening its offerings in the data management space. Having jumped in with the purchase of Cadis in 2012, it recently added Information Mosaic, so another acquisition in the space comes as something of a surprise.
As chairman and CEO Lance Uggla puts it: “The transaction is consistent with our longterm strategy to accelerate organic growth through acquisitions, and will enhance our position as a leading provider of financial information services.”
The two companies say CoreOne’s four core products will be integrated into Markit’s Information and Solutions divisions thus:
- RegOne’s trade execution quality and regulatory reporting solution will complement Markit’s equity transaction analytics capabilities
- DeltaOne’s index and ETP coverage and state-of-the-art user interface will enhance Markit’s index and ETP data management business
- VistaOne’s data warehouse, reporting and documentation tools will enrich Markit’s Enterprise Data Management platform
- PrimeOne’s prime brokerage services will extend Markit’s software offerings
CoreOne has more than 500 customers including global banks, asset managers, wealth managers, sovereign wealth funds, investor services firms, custodians and exchanges. The company is supported by a team of 200, with headquarters in New York and additional presence in Bangalore, Hong Kong and London.
The total consideration of approximately $200 million will be funded using cash and Markit’s credit facility, with transaction due to close in the fourth quarter.
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