Wombat Financial Software Inc., the leading provider of low latency and direct feed market data solutions, today announced the acquisition of Harco Technology Ltd., the market data usage reporting and compliance technology experts, for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition of Harco, which services the market data spend management needs of over 70 trading floors worldwide with its Data Access and Reporting Tool (DART), is set to further enhance Wombat’s product offering, and has already been applauded by many Wombat and Harco customers informed of the deal this week.
The combination of Harco’s best-of-breed usage and reporting product line and the Wombat Entitlements System, gives the company a compelling off-the-shelf exchange entitlements and usage reporting solution, more capable than any available in the market to date. Its open architecture allows the combined solution to be offered as a stand alone product, in addition to being implemented in conjunction with the Wombat market data distribution platform or with other common market data platforms.
“The acquisition of Harco makes sense to both Wombat and Harco, and to customers alike. Rather than expending our efforts catching up to what Harco has achieved, we want to continue to move further ahead in areas of the industry that need the most attention,†said Ron Verstappen, CEO of Wombat.
“There were so many complementary attributes between the two companies that none of us had any doubts as to it being the right move – and at the right time, too. This acquisition, along with the fact that we had already spent time integrating our products, gives customers a much more complete and integrated solution – in addition to being able to just take components of the entire solution incrementally,†added Verstappen.
Stuart Harvey, Harco’s Managing Director, said, “By combining Harco’s product lines with the Wombat Entitlements System, we can together add significant value to our current client base and address the needs of a much larger market share. Customers will be able to save both time and expenditures when implementing a solution with our combined products.â€
Harvey was also keen to emphasize that Harco clients can expect business as usual on its current product set, which will continue to develop and enhance going forward.
The acquisition comes at a time when many securities exchanges have become more forceful in trying to monetize the value of their market data products, including the possible imposition of significant financial penalties upon those who fail to properly control and report upon usage of their content. As a result, the management of market data and related spend has recently been transformed from a cost control issue to a critical business risk, with the responsibility falling squarely on the CIO and trading heads of management.
