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"Data's worth nothing if you don't trust it" Confluence founder comments on StatPro deal

David Stevenson, 30/10/2019

As technology continues to become more central to asset management, from FinTech, to RegTech and DataTech, Confluence a global player in the latter field confirmed its acquisition of UK-based StatPro.

CEO of Confluence Mark Evans, told Fundeye that the deal will aid the firm which has ‘traditionally been viewed as back office’ support to areas in both the front and middle office.

One of the main draws to StatPro was its acquisition of UBS Delta over two years ago, the Swiss investment banking giant’s risk and analysis service.

Mr Evans said that the acquisition will further enhance the ‘global journey’ Confluence is on, it has offices from the US to Vietnam with European offerings as well, allowing the firm to aid its clients in regulatory matters anywhere on the globe.

The Delta deal, which was unique in that StatPro staff would be based in UBS’ offices and still use the UBS brand before integrating it into StatPro’s flagship product StatPro Revolution, still has a couple of years to run according to Mr Evans. The desire to have ‘functional parity’ between the two services is ‘well on its way’ according to the Confluence founder and chief and with StatPro now under the wing of the DataTech giant, ‘we can drive Delta and give it the space it deserves and make it available to larger clients’.

StatPro’s chief executive Justin Wheatley and Mr Evans have known each other for over 20 years so the bolt-on will likely not suffer from cultural mismatches that have scuppered many a deal. Mr Evans told Fundeye that ‘the market hasn’t appreciated StatPro’ and indeed much was made of the company’s seemingly painful transition into software as a service (SaaS) model a few years ago.

However, given StatPro was trading at under £1 in early 2017 and closed at 228p after the AIM-listed firm was suspended from trading after the acquisition, the market seemed to have caught on to what the firm had to offer (as well as the usual M&A premium added by takeovers).

“Data is worth nothing if you don’t trust the data and while getting something right and doing it faster is sometimes seemingly at odds with each other, we are committed to doing things faster and better," declared Mr Evans.

In terms of the details of how StatPro will fit into the global organisation that is Confluence, Mr Evans said that it can be both integrated and separate, as ‘both compliment each other where it makes sense’.

“Our number one concern is that the client believes we’re doing right by them and I never take for granted that a client will stay,” said Mr Evans. When UBS Delta drops the UBS badge and is assimilated into Statpro Revolution, there was some concern that clients may leave. However, given that Confluence has a strong relationship with the Swiss financial institution and a strong reputation in its own right, fears of clients leaving due to a name change may be overplayed.

Finally as Confluence is a privately owned company, with private equity firm TA Associates having a majority investment, StatPro will no longer be under the watchful eye of the London Stock Exchange, having to watch their every move in case of spooking shareholders.

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