SunGard

SunGard was an American multinational company based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, which provided software and services to education, financial services, and public sector organizations. It was formed in 1983, as a spin-off of the computer services division of Sun Oil Company. The name of the company originally was an acronym which stood for Sun Guaranteed Access to Recovered Data, a reference to the disaster recovery business it helped pioneer. SunGard was ranked at 480th in the U.S. Fortune 500 list in the year 2012.[1]

In August 2005, the company was acquired by seven private equity firms for $11.3 billion and de-listed from the NYSE.[2] SunGard was one of the title sponsors of the pro cycling team until the end of 2011.[3]

In August 2015, FIS

Acquisitions

SunGard historically grew by acquisition. Past mergers included Performance Pathways, Vericenter, InFlow, Strohl Systems, Comdisco Continuity Services, and Guardian iT PLC on the availability side, Systems & Computer Technology Corp. (SCT) on the higher education side, and Kiodex. Inc.,[7] GL Trade, Oshap (Mint, Decalog), TRAX, Carnot AG, Front Capital Systems (Front Arena), Martini, Monis, APT, Dyatron, Reech, VPM, Phase 3 Systems, Infinity, Microhedge, Reconciliation, Automated Securities Clearance India, Opus Renaissance Software Inc., and National Computer Systems Financial Systems Division on the (primarily financial) software and processing side. SunGard completed more than 150 acquisitions over 20 years.

Among the largest acquisitions were:

In 1997, SunGard Data Systems acquired Infinity Financial Technology, a designer of trading and risk-management software, for about US$390 million, where $313 million were paid in stock and $77 million went in cash.[8] Infinity Financial Technology reported revenues of about $60 million in the fiscal year 1996.

In 1999, SunGard acquired Israel's Oshap Technologies (Nasdaq:OSHSF) for $210M in stock, giving SunGard a foothold in both the middleware (via Oshap's subsidiary Mint Communications) and front-office portfolio management systems markets (via Oshap's subsidiary Decalog).[9]

In 2001, SunGard acquired Comdisco Inc.’s computer disaster-recovery business after a U.S. appeals court rebuffed a request by the Justice Department to halt the $825 million transaction.[10]

In 2004, SunGard acquired Systems & Computer Technology Corp. (SCT) for $590 million in cash.[11]

In 2008, SunGard acquired GL Trade, a Paris-based financial services firm for nearly US$1 billion; in a first tranche a 65% stake in GL Trade was acquired for $625 million, including effect of outstanding stock options.[12] The deal encompasses the NYSE Euronext's 40% stake in GL Trade, however 25.4% were in the hand of the founders and 36.6% of the shares were free float. The deal was considered to be financially hazardous, given that GL Trade reported revenues of €203 million and an EBITDA of €26 million (fiscal year 2007).

In 2008, SunGard acquired Strohl Systems, an IT company, a direct competitor of SunGard in availability and recovery planning, for an estimated $450 million cash transaction. Strohl Systems became the software division of SunGard Availability Services, located in King of Prussia, PA

In 2010, Sungard acquired 365 Hosting Limited cloud computing and data centre services company [13]

type	Private
foundation	1983
fate	Acquired by FIS
defunct	2015
location	Wayne, Pennsylvania, U.S.
owner	FIS
key people	Gary Norcross (CEO)
industry	Information Technology
products	Computer software Support services
revenue	$4.991 billion (2011)
num employees	13,000 (2014)

Business

Acquisitions

Leveraged buyout 2005

De-merger activities

References