British software vendor Misys has acquired Dublin-based Trapedza Financial Systems, a core banking start-up established by former executives at its Kindle Banking Systems subsidiary.
Trapedza was established in February 2001 by ex-Kindle Banking Systems executives Brendan Aherne, Cormac Flanagan and Ronnie Nolan.
Terms and value of the deal were not disclosed, but according to a report by the Sunday Business Post, Trapedza shareholders "did not make a substantial return on their investments".
Trapedza's flagship product, BankFusion, is an enterprise banking system that has been developed exlusively in Java using application server and Web services technologies. It is thought the technology will be combined with Misys' Bankmaster Plus platform following the acquisition.
Nobody from Misys was immediately available to comment on the deal, although it's understood that Trapedza had failed to secure any clients in its five-year history and was down to a skeleton staff of ten people.
The UK software house is currently mired in a damaging takeover wrangle involving the incumbent Misys management, led by chief executive Kevin Lomax, and a management walk-in bid by former executives. Third party interest in the group has waned, with both SunGard and Fiserv dropping out of the bidding in recent months.
According to a report in British broadsheet The Guardian, Lomax and chairman Sir Dominic Cadbury face the prospect of an embarrassing protest vote against their re-election to the board at next week's annual meeting. Shareholders, led by CIS, the fund management arm of the Co-op Group, are planning to use the meeting to express their displeasure at the handling of the takeover talks and the poor performance of the company over the past year, says the paper.