SunGard snaps up Reech Capital

US technology company SunGard has acquired Reech Capital, a London-based risk pricing, validation and portfolio valuation technology company. The move is the latest instalment in SunGard’s acquisition spree aimed at making the Pennsylvania-based company the primary source of technology for the financial industry.

Reech Capital offers vanilla and exotic derivatives pricing models across all the main asset classes. It also offers multi-asset exotic pricing. In addition, Reech offers a validation service for existing models, and an application service provider for independent valuation of portfolios of assets plus a risk management service targeted at hedge funds.Christophe Reech, founder and chief executive of Reech Capital and a veteran of Paribas and Commerzbank, confirmed the deal. He told RiskNews that Reech Capital would become a standalone operating unit of SunGard. “Reech has been built to be scalable. Joining a very big group represents a fantastic opportunity to leverage,” Reech said.

“We will not change our business model, our product development or our product expansion,” he added, saying that his management team and the company’s 50 or so staff would remain after the acquisition.

Most of Reech Capital’s 60 customers are based in Europe. But Reech believes the SunGard deal should enable the company to gain a significant presence in the United States and Asia.

SunGard’s purchase of Reech Capital appears to create overlaps with its Monis convertible bond technology unit. But Reech said there were “synergies” between the two, with Reech Capital stronger in fixed-income analytics and Monis offering strong risk management technology.

Reech declined to say how much SunGard had paid for his company, but the two companies will issue a joint statement on the matter on June 3.