It’s been a big week for Gresham Technologies which has completed the £7.5m acquisition of B2 Group on the same day its share prices have fallen.
The software and services company will add B2’s cash management and payments integration solutions to its portfolio after paying a total sum of EUR 8.5 million (£7.5m).
This will increase Gresham’s market and advance its plan to create a global, enterprise financial technology business.
Following the acquisition, all B2 senior leadership and staff have joined Gresham and will continue to work together as a specialist team known as Gresham Cash Management Solutions. The B2 Luxembourg office will become a hub for growing Gresham’s expanding business in continental Europe.
“We’re delighted to be announcing today’s acquisition of B2 Group,” said Gresham CEO Ian Manocha.
“This exciting combination creates an industry leader in multi-bank integration and control solutions for corporates, banks, insurers and asset managers, it strengthens our cloud capabilities and gives us a platform to further accelerate our growth.
“We have strategic plans for our combined organisation and remain committed to delivering innovative products, excellent support and industry expertise to our customers.”
Highlights of the acquisition include 15 new customers, comprising corporates, banks, insurers, and asset managers, added to the Gresham customer base.
For the B2 team it brings proven, private cloud capability hosted at its trusted, secure, high-availability data centres in Luxembourg.
Gresham will take B2 Group’s full product set to the global market as part of the Clareti portfolio with B2’s ‘Multi-Bank Integrator’ being renamed as ‘Clareti Multi Bank’.
Phil Boland and Marc Binck, B2 Group co-founders, added: “Joining with Gresham will enable us to take our innovative multi-bank solutions to a global market.
“Gresham shares our passion for customers and understands how to support the growth of a successful and talented financial technology team. We are delighted to be joining Gresham.”
The company also released its trading update for the half year to 30 June 2018, announcing it expected its revenue to be down five per cent compared to the same period last year.
The announcement caused Gresham’s share price to fall by 11 per cent. However it did say it expects its adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) for the full year to be ‘broadly in line with expectations’.