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Transactions

December 2012
Birmingham, Alabama
has been acquired by
Wayne, Pennsylvania


Background

In 2011, XcitekSolutionsPlus, LLC (XSP) celebrated its 15-year anniversary as the most widely-implemented global Corporate Actions automation platform in the world.  

The company was founded in 2004 with the combination of Solutions Plus, Inc., the Birmingham, Alabama based securities and investment technology consulting firm and backing from Xcitek, the New York, NY based provider of corporation actions data (now part of Interactive Data Corp). 

XSP released XSP Version 1.0 in 1997 and signed its first three clients – UMB Bank, Bankers Trust and Citibank. UMB and Citi are still clients today and Bankers Trust, through acquisitions, eventually ended up as part of State Street Bank, also a major XSP client today.

In 2007, M&A advised Xcitek, the data company on its sale to Interactive Data Corporation.  In 2012, the shareholders of XSP, which included the founders of both Xcitek and XSP asked M&A to advise them as they sought to develop and execute appropriate strategic alternatives.



Overview

M&A organized a dedicated team to work closely with Management to identify strengths and weaknesses of the Company and to develop materials that would seamlessly communicate XSP’s story, growth potential, strategy, execution plan and financial projections.  Working with XSP’s Management, M&A identified and approached financial sponsors and strategic parties that we believed could be interested in partnering with the Company. There was significant interest in the company from a wide range of potential partners.  M&A leveraged its deep domain expertise, significant knowledge of the global Financial Technology universe to help manage process that involved parties from North America, Europe and Asia.  M&A helped Management frame the Company’s unique value proposition and growth potential and then spent the time with these parties to ensure that they fully understood the story.  When the process narrowed the field down to a few parties, M&A advised XSP’s shareholders on negotiation strategies to ensure common agreement on objectives.

After a review of its options, careful consideration, and negotiation, XSP agreed to be acquired by SunGard, a leading Financial Technology provider.  The strategic fit with SunGard appeared solid – SunGard was one of XSP’s initial partners, helping resell the company’s solution to its existing client base.  Further, the cultural fit between the parties made negotiations easier.  Both sides came to believe that combining the solutions offered by the two firms should enable firms to work with a single provider to achieve true straight-through-processing of middle and back office functions.  The combination would allow XSP’s employees a wider career path, as it was SunGard’s intentions to keep the company intact and to give XSP’s CEO, Brendan Farrell, a larger role.  Further, both companies believed that customers would benefit from SunGard’s global reach and broader product line.  The combination should also accelerate XSP’s organic growth and provide SunGard with a stronger foothold in the corporate actions processing market.

M&A Role

Marlin & Associates managed the process, assisted in the negotiations and acted as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to the shareholders and managers of XSP.

Press

SunGard Acquires XcitekSolutionsPlus, LLC

January 07, 2013

January 7, 2013 — Wayne, PA

SunGard has acquired XcitekSolutionsPlus, LLC (XSP), a leading provider of end-to-end, automated corporate actions solutions. The acquisition, the terms of which were not disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard’s financial results.

XSP offers a range of deployed, hosted and SaaS-based solutions that help automate the corporate actions processing lifecycle, including data sourcing and cleansing, position monitoring, notification and response and entitlement processing.

XSP will become part of SunGard’s capital markets business. XSP’s current chief executive, Brendan P. Farrell, Jr., will continue to lead the XSP team, reporting to John Grimaldi, head of the North American securities business for SunGard.

“This acquisition is an exciting step in the growth of XSP. XSP is already considered a leading provider of automated corporate actions processing solutions. Becoming part of SunGard will help us grow our global footprint and further enhance the breadth of our offering,” said Brendan P. Farrell, Jr., chief executive officer at XSP.

John Grimaldi, executive vice president for SunGard’s North American securities business unit, said, “Corporate actions processing is fundamental to the successful operations of most financial services firms, including sell-side traders, custodians, asset managers, hedge funds and wealth managers. These firms are at the heart of SunGard’s business. The acquisition of XSP will help us deliver specialist corporate actions expertise and solutions to these core customers, and enhance our offering to our securities processing, accounting and servicing customers.”

*Source: Aite Group, December 2010

Marlin & Associates acted as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to XSP.

About SunGard’s XSP
SunGard’s XSP provides solutions and services for global corporate actions processing. Accredited with the SWIFTReady Corporate Actions Label, the XSP solution suite offers a range of deployed, hosted and SaaS-based solutions that help automate the corporate actions processing lifecycle, including data sourcing and cleansing, position monitoring, notification and response, and entitlement processing. The suite includes the XSP v5 platform for large multi-tenant enterprises, XSPrisa, a SaaS-based solution for small to medium enterprises and XSP GO!, a suite of customizable user interface components that includes mobile applications. For more information, please visit www.sungard.com/xsp.

About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 17,000 employees and serves approximately 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue of about $4.5 billion, SunGard is the largest privately held software and services company and is ranked 480 on the Fortune 500. For more information, please visit www.sungard.com.

About Marlin & Associates
Marlin & Associates Holding LLC is a boutique investment banking and strategic advisory firm specializing in acquisitions and divestitures of U.S. and international middle-market firms that provide technology, digital information and healthcare-related products, technology and services. The firm is headquartered in New York, NY and has additional offices in San Francisco, CA; Washington, DC; Toronto, Canada; and Hong Kong, China.

Marlin & Associates Securities LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marlin & Associates Holding LLC, is a broker-dealer registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is a FINRA/SIPC member firm. Investment banking and/or securities are offered through Marlin & Associates Securities LLC. Marlin & Associates' professionals have advised on more than 200 successfully completed transactions.

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