Avaloq, a cloud platform and service provider for banks, wealth managers and investment firms, has signed an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of Zurich-based Derivative Partners AG, an independent information and data provider for Structured Products and Derivatives.
Derivative Partners has been providing highly valuable market information, tools, research and calculations for complex financial products for its clients in Switzerland and Europe for over 15 years. It will continue to operate as an autonomous entity for the foreseeable future, with all staff retained. Detailed financial terms are not being disclosed.
Established in 2000 and led by CEO Daniel Manser and COO Patrick Walther, Derivative Partners provides solutions for structured products to more than 40 market participants including issuers, private banks, asset managers and exchanges with valuations of option-linked securities and complex financial products. In addition, the firm calculates regulatory figures and portfolio management ratios as well as third-party valuation models and provides quantitative support for Investment Banking and Trading divisions. Its range of services further includes product governance, life cycle management solutions and media services.
For Avaloq, the acquisition places the firm at the forefront of utilising differentiating data for structured product and ETF markets on its platform. With Derivative Partners’ powerful analytical services, Avaloq will be able to offer both established and new clients the independent valuation, trading and management of highly complex financial instruments at a time when their use by banks and wealth managers is becoming increasingly more relevant.
Juerg Hunziker (pictured), Avaloq’s Group CEO, says: “Derivative Partners has established itself as a true market leader and competence centre for analysis of structured financial products. It is a perfect match for our strategic ambitions and we are delighted to welcome the team into the Avaloq Community. The firm’s extensive consulting capabilities and know-how around structured products are a natural fit with Avaloq’s existing business service offering, and the acquisition underpins Avaloq’s vision of reinventing the financial experience in a fully digitised, always-on and data-driven world through powerful data analytics.
“Optimised and quality-assured data is used for clean, straight-through processing, improved services and more precise insights, and we know that superior data models are absolutely critical for the future of the global financial services industry. The integration of Derivative Partners’ functionalities is a compelling and differentiating advantage for our Avaloq ecosystem and we will now build on this ability to handle the most complex financial instruments for the benefit of our clients and all our stakeholders.”
Daniel Manser, CEO, Derivative Partners, says: “Avaloq has grown into the world’s foremost provider of digital solutions for banks and wealth managers, with an unprecedented, and growing, portfolio of clients in Europe and Asia. By becoming part of the Avaloq group, Derivative Partners’ technology will be fast-tracked to a far larger audience, and our team is delighted to become part of a truly exceptional company with global reach.”
