Cinnober today announces it has agreed to acquire Nomura's internationally renowned Swedish technology development organization in Umeå. The deal includes 40 specialists in developing equity trading applications and platforms.
Besides an enlarged development capability, the acquisition provides Cinnober with additional competence in delivering solutions to investment banks and brokers within execution services as well as expertise in high-volume, low-latency data warehousing. This takes Cinnober further in its aggressive growth strategy, which aims to increase sales with a broadened product portfolio.
"This is a great step in our company's development and moves us toward our vision for growth ahead," says Nils-Robert Persson, Executive Chairman of Cinnober. "I am very pleased that we're now expanding our family with many highly skilled developers who - like the team in Stockholm - also have a proven track record within financial technology for marketplaces, banks and brokers."
"Cinnober has achieved international success over the past decade working from a single office with almost 200 employees in central Stockholm. Our growth plans call for getting more people onboard as well," Persson continues. "Umeå is an innovative city in northern Sweden, with its own university and our new colleagues here will play an important role in our future expansion."
The technology development office stems from a Swedish financial IT company called Interbizz, founded in 2000. In 2003 Lehman Brothers acquired the company, which later was responsible for developing the LSE MTF system Baikal, among others. Nomura acquired the business in 2008. The main focus for Nomura's Umeå team has been developing technology applications and platforms for data capture and analysis in equities trading, giving Nomura's clients detailed analytics in real time. The team has also delivered platforms in compliance with financial transparency standards that provide trade reporting, market statistics and information.
Mark Butterfield, Chief Information Officer, EMEA at Nomura said: "Whilst our Umea Technology unit has been of huge value to our business, the demands of building a true global business has led us to determine a new global sourcing strategy within Technology. A key part of this is focusing our development effort into our core global centres. We fully believe that the acquisition of our Umea Technology assets by Cinnober will be a great result for all parties."
The deal includes a transitional support agreement for Nomura's ongoing system operations developed and managed from the Umeå office. Cinnober has an impressive track record of providing mission-critical solutions and services within trading, clearing and surveillance to leading trading and clearing venues. Portfolio expansions underway also target banks and brokers.
Nomura continues to operate an investment banking and global markets business out of its registered office in Stockholm.