Surbiton, Surrey-based DST Clarke & Tilley Ltd has bought Sydney-based HiPortfolio Pty Ltd, a competitor in the asset management software market. DST Clarke & Tilley paid cash, borrowed from its parent company Kansas City, Missouri-based DST Systems Inc, to buy the privately held company. Terms were not disclosed but both shareholders in HiPortfolio, Chris Shannon and John Booth, will join the executive committee of the new company, as will Marcus Ansell, a former employee of Clarke & Tilley, and the managing director of HiPortfolio UK. Mike Winn, group managing director, said the acquisition has added another 100 clients to DST Clarke & Tilley’s customer portfolio and the new company is expected to have turnover of about #48m this year. We beli eve that we’re the undisputed leader in the field of asset management in terms of size and number of users. But we’re not going to become complacent, Winn said. He added that none of the 600 staff will be made redundant, although there will be a rationalisation of resources. For example, HiPortfolio’s office in London will be closed and staff moved to Surbiton, but in Sydney, DST Clarke & Tilley staff will move into HiPortfolio’s office. The company expects to have a new name by the end of the month; suggestions are DST International, DST Software or Systems, which suggests the names Clarke & Tilley and HiPortfolio will disappear from the title. Ansell and Winn said the name change was crucial in settling HiPortfolio staff into the new company as, in England especially, many HiPortfolio staff had joined the company from Clarke & Tilley, when the Australian opened here in the UK in 1989. Ansell described the takeover as traumatic, but positive, because HiPortfolio had always considered Clarke & Tilley a major rival.

Other acquisitions

However, he added that HiPortfolio had never made a secret of the fact that it would eventually need to sell out in order to achieve greater worldwide coverage for its products. Winn said the new company was committed to supporting and developing the existing products of both companies, HiPortfolio’s bearing the same name as the company. Shannon, who developed HiPortfolio, has been charged with developing a product strategy that in the first place will probably involve the raiding and grafting of the best parts of HiPortfolio onto DST Clarke & Tilley’s Impact and Uptix products. The other aim is to make all the products interconnectable. DST Clarke & Tilley makes back office systems for investment management houses; HiPortfolio has a front end of the same market and there is considerable overlap between the two. It been working on a new product, GPS, scheduled to ship by year-end. The purchase of HiPortfolio should strengthen parent company DST Systems plans for a public offering on the New York stock exchange some time this year. DST bought Clarke & Tilley in 1993 (CI No 2,197), just a year after Winn said it was planning to grow to a #20m company by 1995 on the back of its move into open systems. Winn said the new company is like to continue its expansion through purchase. Possible acquisitions are a data centre, remote service provider or facilities management business. DST has a stake in Continuum Co Inc; in the US it provides remote processing for Continuum. It is planning a similar alliance in the UK where it will offer Continuum’s insurance software to users remotely.