GL TRADE Announces The Acquisition Of Ubitrade Group - Group Now Provides Full Front-To-Back Solution For Equity, Derivative And OTC Markets

GL TRADE, an international provider of global electronic front-to-back office trading solutions, today announced the acquisition of the Ubitrade Group, a leader in electronic trading and back office solutions.

Ubitrade Group reported turnover of €17m in 2003, and expects a slight increase of growth for 2004. Ubitrade services approximately one hundred clients and employs 140 people based in Paris, London, Frankfurt, Chicago and Sydney, with a development centre in Tunisia. Prior to the acquisition, Ubitrade’s founders and managers were its main shareholders.

The first multi-instrument front-to-back solution

With this acquisition, GL TRADE becomes the first supplier to offer a fully integrated front-to-back office solution for derivatives markets, also available in ASP mode.

This solution will combine GL TRADE’s front-end trading station (GL WIN) and its middle office solution (GL CLEARVISION) with Ubitrade’s back office solution, UBIX.

UBIX is a real-time clearing and settlement system for derivatives markets which complements the back office product offering of GL SETTLE, a subsidiary of GL TRADE specializing in settlement solutions.

Increased risk management expertise

GL TRADE’s range of buy-side solutions will be strengthened with TRADIX, a complete trading and order management solution for OTC products. This solution enables the handling of all asset classes in terms of position and risk management. This will allow GL TRADE to rapidly integrate OTC instruments within its global order management system (OMS) for equities and derivatives.

Ubitrade is also a distributor, in some European countries, of the Fermat range of statutory risk management tools for banks. Its consolidation within the GL TRADE group should enable this partnership to be extended geographically.

“GL TRADE’s global reach combined with their worldwide sales network will be very beneficial to us, in both accelerating our growth rate and cementing our global reputation”, observed Yassine Brahim, CEO of Ubitrade. “The excellent fit between our product offerings and the similarities of our business cultures will be key advantages in the integration of our staff and our products”.

“This acquisition will enable GL TRADE to further strengthen its position across the entire Straight Through Processing (STP) chain and enhance its expertise in risk management for all asset types,” added Pierre Gatignol, GL TRADE’s CEO. “Bringing together our two technologies will open the way to an integrated front-to-back ASP solution, allowing us to offer our clients competitive, and easily implemented solutions.”