Cygnifi was formed by JP Morgan in February 2000 to develop applications for derivatives pricing, portfolio valuation, credit risk management, and collateral management.

The software deployed by the company was valued at $42 million at the time of its formation. Cygnifi subsequently raised an additional $23.3 million in first round financing in August 2000, but folded a year later when management failed to raise further funding.

MBRM was founded in 1988 and currently offers derivatives software to a client base of 1500 institutions and 30,000 users worldwide. Mamdouh Barakat, president and chief executive of MBRM, believes the acquisition of the rights to the Cygnifi applications will significantly enhance the existing MBRM product range.

He says: "When I was approached to acquire the rights I saw it as an opportunity to expand our presence and profile within the market. These applications will complement our existing toolbox approach and complement many of our existing initiatives."

He says MBRM will enhance its existing Universal range of software and services by integrating them with the best components from Cygnifi's systems.

Among the intellectual property acquired by MBRM from Cygnifi are:
* Kapital Risk Management System, a portfolio and risk management application;
* Aladdin, a spreadsheet based multi-currency pricing tool;
* Cygnifi Analytics Library, the result of seven years of development;
* Sampras, a system for monitoring counterparty credit exposure and risk;
* Collateral Manager, a collateral operations support system;
* Collateral HeatMap, which provides collateral managers with visualisation tools for evaluating risk in a collateralised portfolio;
* Trinity, a legal information service;
* Jamshidian Swap Market Model;
* Blue Derivatives Pricer, a derivatives valuation application;
* Djinni Swaps Pricer, an interest rate swap valuation application;
* Derivates Studio Web-based Derivatives Pricer, an interest rate and FX derivatives valuation system;
* Vizz Valuation Service, a Web application to manage a portfolio of flow and exotic interest rate derivatives online; and
* Mondrian, a P&L and positions consolidation system.