April 17, 2012 SOFTWARE INDUSTRY FIRST QUARTER 2012 TRENDS REPORT

Berkery Noyes has released its Software Industry M&A trends report for the first quarter. Within the niche software classification, which is software designed to be used by specific vertical industries, software targeted to financial firms was one of the most active segments. The largest related deal for the quarter was Vista Equity Partners’ announced acquisition of Misys, a provider of banking and financial services software solutions, for $2 billion. 

Upon deeper inspection, 52 percent of financial software deals in Q1 2012 were related to capital markets. According to Berkery Noyes managing director Peter Ognibene, “Big data is increasing the demands on trading, modeling, executing, and portfolio management.”

Two niche capital markets software transactions, Envestnet’s announced acquisition of Tamarac and SEI Investments’ announced acquisition of NorthStar Systems International, pertained directly to wealth management.