LONDON: First Derivatives plc (FD) has agreed to sell part of its investment in Quantile Technologies to Spectrum Equity, a growth equity firm.
Under the transaction FD will dispose of the majority of its holding in Quantile for cash consideration of £11 million, representing a total gain of £10 million on the initial cost of the investment (£7m gain on the current carrying value).
Following this transaction FD will retain a minority stake in Quantile.
The investment occurred as part of FD’s strategy of assisting companies that were adopting KX in new and innovative ways. Quantile utilises KX as the technology that underpins its highly successful advanced compression and risk rebalancing services and remains a valuable customer of the Group.
The investment in Quantile represented FD’s largest investment of this type, accounting for £10m of a total of £16m of other financial assets on the Group’s consolidated balance sheet as at 28 February 2020. In the year to December 2019, Quantile reported net profit of £0.7m, although its performance was not consolidated as FD’s holding was below 20%.
The consideration has been received and the proceeds will be used for general working capital purposes.
FD is a global technology provider with more than 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s largest finance, technology, automotive, manufacturing and energy institutions.
The Group’s KX technology, incorporating the kdb+ time-series database, is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. KX delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications across multiple industries.
FD operates from 15 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, including its headquarters in Newry, and employs more than 2,400 people worldwide.