Monis is the world's largest independent supplier of derivatives analytics, supplying libraries, applications, data and services for analyzing and managing most derivatives - equity, fixed income/interest rates, FX, credit and more - to more than 350 financial institutions, including ABN Amro, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Dresdner KB, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and UBS. Based in London and New York, Monis has a staff of 60+ people.

Trading strategies using convertible bonds, credit derivatives and equity-linked securities have been growing in popularity amongst buy-side and sell-side firms over the last two years. The acquisition of Monis is intended to complement SunGard's activities in these asset classes by providing analytics and decision support, enabling users to hedge, price and manage their cross-asset class portfolios in an integrated equity-linked environment.

Monis will be an operating unit of SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, led by Emanuel Mond, co-founder and current co-chairman of the group. The new unit will incorporate SunGard's TrueCalc application for convertible bond pricing and analysis.

Jim Ashton, chief executive officer of SunGard Trading and Risk Systems says: "Monis' client base, which includes a large number of hedge funds, will help us to more effectively support the evolving needs of that market."

Financial terms have not been disclosed. Since September 1998 Monis has been backed by Kennet Capital, a joint venture between investment banking boutique Broadview, and Electra Fleming, an international private equity group. In November 1998 Monis received further backing from the Intel Corporation.