Partial sale of Quantile Technologies holding

RNS Number : 9579P

First Derivatives PLC

23 February 2021

 

23 February 2021

First Derivatives plc

("FD" or the "Group")

Partial sale of Quantile Technologies holding

FD (AIM: FDP.L, Euronext Growth: FDP.I) announces that it has agreed to sell part of its investment in Quantile Technologies ("Quantile") to Spectrum Equity, a growth equity firm. Under the transaction FD will dispose of the majority of its holding in Quantile for cash consideration of £11m, representing a total gain of £10m on the initial cost of the investment (£7m gain on the current carrying value). Following this transaction FD will retain a minority stake in Quantile.

The investment occurred as part of FD's strategy of assisting companies that were adopting KX in new and innovative ways. Quantile utilises KX as the technology that underpins its highly successful advanced compression and risk rebalancing services and remains a valuable customer of the Group. The investment in Quantile represented FD's largest investment of this type, accounting for £10m of a total of £16m of other financial assets on the Group's consolidated balance sheet as at 28 February 2020. In the year to December 2019, Quantile reported net profit of £0.7m, although its performance was not consolidated as FD's holding was below 20%.

The consideration has been received and the proceeds will be used for general working capital purposes.

Enquiries

For further information please contact:

First Derivatives plc Seamus Keating, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Preston, Chief Financial Officer Ian Mitchell, Head of Investor Relations	[phone] www.firstderivatives.com
Investec Bank plc (Nominated Adviser and Broker) Andrew Pinder Carlton Nelson Sebastian Lawrence	[phone]
Goodbody (Euronext Growth Adviser and Broker) David Kearney Don Harrington Finbarr Griffin	[phone]
FTI Consulting Matt Dixon Dwight Burden Darius Alexander	[phone]

About FD

FD is a global technology provider with more than 20 years of experience working with some of the world's largest finance, technology, automotive, manufacturing and energy institutions. The Group's KX technology, incorporating the kdb+ time-series database, is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. KX delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications across multiple industries. FD operates from 15 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, including its headquarters in Newry, and employs more than 2,400 people worldwide.

For further information, please visit www.firstderivatives.com and www.KX.com

 

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